Redemption and Atonement
by A Scary Man
Summary: It's never too late to change sides. It's never too late to do the right thing. It's never too late to be forgiven.
1. Chapter 1

The girl stopped. Crouching down, she listened carefully. Nothing. No noise other than the wind rustling through the trees. Another false alarm. She waited for another few seconds, just to make sure. No. There was nothing. It was safe to move on. She stood, slowly, and began to pick her way carefully through the trees once more. Her eyes scanned the ground, looking out for any loose twigs or leaves or anything else that would make too much noise if she stepped on it. She stayed low, trying to keep herself behind cover whenever possible. Being small and nimble made this easier.

In the distance she heard a muffled scream. She stopped, dropping to her knees again, holding her breath and listening intently for any more sounds. The silence was interrupted by the sound of running feet, somewhere off to her left, and then another scream and the sound of a body hitting the ground. After that there was only silence. How far away had it been? The girl didn't know. It was hard to judge distance in the midst of these woods. It hadn't sounded all that close, but she couldn't be sure.

One of the others was down, that much was obvious. She knew exactly what that meant, and she redoubled her determination to keep going. Getting back to her feet, she restarted her slow and cautious progress through the trees. She knew she couldn't be far from safety now. Pulling up the face of her wristwatch, she consulted the tiny compass built in underneath. Yes, she was still heading in the right direction. It was easy to lose one's bearings in these surroundings, so she was checking the compass regularly to ensure she kept on the right path. She flipped the face of her watch back down, and checked the time. Good. She still had enough time.

But the going wasn't quite so easy now. She was nervous after hearing the scream, and knowing that one of her friends had been captured. She wasn't moving as easily or as quietly as she had done before. Her movements were faster and no longer calm and fluid, as she needed them to be. She was making too much noise. One of her pursuers was bound to hear her. Ducking down behind a large oak tree, she forced herself to relax, to slow her breathing and her heart. That was the only way she was going to get through this.

She had only just succeeded in bringing her heart rate back to normal, when a sound from behind her sent it thumping once more. Someone was there! Someone was just the other side of the tree! Her heart pounding, the girl knelt and listened, waiting for more sound. There was none. Maybe it hadn't been anything. Maybe it had been a branch or a leaf falling. Maybe it had been a wild animal. Whatever it was, she couldn't hear anything now. Allowing a few more seconds to pass, until she was sure it was safe to move, the girl slowly and cautiously got to her feet.

The noise came again. There was somebody there! There had to be! Instinct told the girl simply to run away as fast as she could, but she forced herself to overcome that urge. She might well be running into a trap if she did that. Those chasing her were not stupid. They'd already caught one of her friends, and maybe more. She had to be smarter than that. Crouching down to pick up a small stone from the forest floor, she took careful aim and threw it in the opposite direction from the one she planned to run.. The stone smacked into the trunk of a tree, and the sudden sound of the impact gave her the opportunity she needed.

In the second when she knew the other person's head would instinctively turn to look in the direction of the noise, the girl took off like a shot. Sprinting away from the oak tree towards safety, she no longer cared how much noise she made. She already had a head start on her pursuers, and she just had to stay ahead of them until she reached the edge of the tree-line. After that she would be safe. She was small and her own footsteps were light, and she could soon make out the sound of at least one other set of footsteps behind her. They knew where was now, all right. They were coming after her.

If there was a trap, it would come now, before she could build up her speed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black figure approaching from the side. Instinctively glancing to the other side, she saw another black figure. This wasn't good! There were three of them after her now, the two on either side closing in to form a pincer movement. The girl looked ahead of her, and her heart sank with dismay. Blocking her path was a huge fallen tree! She knew now she'd been deliberately manoeuvred into this. She was going to be trapped by the blockade, and the three pursuers would converge on her from all sides. Climbing over the tree would take too long; they'd be on her in seconds.

She had no option but to take a risk and try something she'd been practising. Putting her head down, she built up a burst of speed, approaching the fallen tree trunk. The black figures were closing in from all three sides now. At the last second before the tree trunk, the girl leaped from the ground and turned into a mid-air somersault, launching herself clean over the fallen tree.

"What the – " she heard one of her pursuers gasp.

The girl landed awkwardly on her hands and knees, but was on her feet again in a second, and running towards the safety of the tree-line. With her chasers behind her, blocked by the tree, she knew she it was safe to open up and go for broke. The girl accelerated forwards, faster and faster, until the trees on either side of her were merely a blur. She knew she would tire herself out quickly, but as long as she left her pursuers far enough behind, that was all that mattered. The tree-line was in sight now. In her haste to get there, she tripped over a fallen log, and her momentum sent her flying through the air. Curling into a ball, she hit the ground in a perfect roll and kept on going. Behind her were the sound of shouts, but they were far behind her, and she knew she was safe.

Emerging from the forest and slowing down to jogging pace, she immediately saw that two of her friends had also made the journey safely. They were sitting together on a sunny patch of grass, and they beckoned her over.

"Accel! You made it!" one of them, a younger girl, exclaimed with a broad Australian accent.

The ten-year-old girl named Accel sank down, exhausted, on to the grass beside her friends.

"Here," said the other girl, handing her a bottle of water.

"Thanks, Bibi," said Accel.

She uncapped the bottle and took a long drink. Then she asked, "You made it as well, huh?"

"Yup!"

"So did I, faster than both of you," said the boy who was present, with a smirk.

"Yeah well, it's not hard when you can _fly_," Bibi countered.

"Well, how did you do it?" he asked.

Bibi giggled, "I copied Mr Summers' voice and made them do all sorts of stupid things, while I snuck past. They were running around in circles by the end."

"Right. So you used your powers," he said triumphantly. "Exactly the same as me. If I could copy people's voices, I'd have done the same thing."

"Oh, _whatever_," she said impatiently. "What about the others?"

"Dunno. Phoebe got caught, I think. Haven't seen Turtle."

Accel finally got her breath back, and said, "I heard someone go down. Sounded like Turtle."

"Here they come," said the boy.

The two girls looked over to see the group appear at the edge of the woods: two kids – a girl and a boy – and most of the adults.

"Over here!" Bibi called. "Phoebe! Turtle!"

"We got caught," Phoebe lamented.

"What happened? Did you go dizzy?"

"I – "

Cyclops spoke to the kids, "All right, gather round and we'll give you marks for this exercise."

" – I'll tell you later," Phoebe finished.

The five kids hurried over to their headmaster.

"OK," he began. "I'm just going by alphabetical order here. Acceleratus: you made it through the woods without being caught, so that's great. You were spotted though, so that loses you a point. However, due to your excellent use of – improvisation – to escape, you get a bonus point to make up for it. That's full marks."

"Well done!" Bibi whispered to Accel.

"Next," Cyclops went on. "Byblos: excellent work. You made it all the way through without anyone seeing you. Oh, and a bonus point for sending Wolverine the wrong way, resulting in him ending up face-first in a ditch."

The kids began to snigger, but stopped when Logan looked at them.

"Anyway, that's full marks for you too."

"Thank you, sir!" Bibi said excitedly.

"Who's next? Icarus: excellent work as well. You escaped detection, and since yours was the quickest time, you get a bonus point. Full marks."

Icarus smirked.

"That's not fair!" Bibi complained. "What's the point of putting him in a forest when he can just fly over it?"

"Kimberly, that's enough. OK…Phobia: not so good, I'm afraid. I'm not going to fail you on this exercise, because I know you can't help having your dizzy spells."

"I thought I could control them!" Phoebe said in frustration. "I've kept them under control all week!"

"I know. Don't worry about it. That's the whole point of these exercises: to get you accustomed to using your powers in a pressure situation. If you're not ready yet, it'll just take more practice."

She nodded, but still didn't look happy.

"Turtle," he went on. "You didn't make it, obviously, but that was because you were trying to help Phoebe."

The other boy sighed, "Yeah, I saw she was about to go dizzy so I shouted at her to get under cover until it was over. I guess I gave myself away."

"Yes, I know. But I'm not going to fail you either, because putting others before yourself in a dangerous situation is important to learn as well. OK. Does anybody have any questions?"

None of the children said anything. Eventually Bibi shook her head and spoke for the group, "Nope."

"Right. Good work today, all of you. And thanks to everyone else for helping out," he glanced over at the other X-Men and X-Women, and some of the older students, who had been 'hunting' the kids during the exercise.

He concluded, "Since you all did so well today, we'll finish up here. Classes will resume as normal tomorrow."

The kids gave a cheer and hurried off together to discuss their experience among themselves. They found a nice sunny area and sat down together.

"So what happened?" Bibi asked of Phoebe.

The nine year old sighed, "It's so annoying. Like, I heard someone coming, and I thought 'Right, I'll use my power to scare them away'. But when I started trying to cast fear into their mind, I just, like, lost control, and went dizzy and passed out. I thought I had control over it, but I just lost it, like I used to when I was little."

Accel sympathised, "Don't worry about it, Phoebe. You just need more practice. It's like Mr Summers said: that's the whole point of why we're doing these things. If we were already good at them, we wouldn't need to practice."

Phoebe brightened, "I guess."

Icarus, playing with a piece of grass, turned to look at Turtle, "What were you thinking, dude? Getting yourself caught because you stopped to help a _girl_?"

"What's wrong with that?" Turtle shrugged.

"You have to _ask_?"


	2. Chapter 2

Even as one generation of students were gathered together on the grass, the previous generation had also grouped together and were preparing to head off back towards the school.

"Just a minute, you guys," they heard Cyclops' voice from behind them.

The teenagers turned, and the headmaster surveyed the group for a second. Atlas, his hair hanging wild and unkempt around his shoulders, had his arm gently round the slim waist of Gemini: Pyro's foster daughter, with blue eyes and her dark hair reaching her waist, wearing as usual her light blue summer dress, her hand touching Atlas' shoulder and playing with his hair. Vertigo, who kept his hair cropped close to his skull, standing in his usual slouching stance, if indeed it was possible to slouch against thin air. Beside him, adopting much the same posture, stood Chronos: small, red-haired, pale-faced, his eyes on Gemini.

"I'd like to see all of you in my office some time this evening," said Scott. "There's something I'd like to ask you."

"What?" asked Gemini.

"You'll find out this evening."

Scott left them, and the teenagers exchanged a few glances.

"Hey, a mystery," said Vertigo sarcastically. "How exciting…"

He wasn't sure whether or not Cyclops was fully out of earshot – nor did he particularly care.

"What do you think it's about?" said Chronos.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No."

"He's going to ask us to become X-Men."

Gemini blinked, "Are you serious?"

"Yes. This is my serious face."

"How do you know he's going to ask that?"

"I overheard him and Storm talking. Besides, they're not going to let us hang around here as students forever, are they?"

"Are you sure that's what he wants to ask us?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I dunno…I just thought my dad might have said something, if that was what Cyclops had in mind."

Vertigo shrugged, "Well, for me it'll be probably be a case of 'Join up or shove off"."

"Why do you say that?" asked Chronos.

Gemini answered, "Because he's 19 now, hasn't attended a class in over a year, and doesn't even do anything useful to justify getting free food and lodging."

"Hey, I teach the kids self defence…sometimes…occasionally…" Vertigo reminded her.

"Yeah, like, when you can be bothered."

"True. And Cyclops _has_ complained to me before that I don't do enough to earn my keep. I get the feeling I can't smooth-talk my way out of it much longer."

"So if you don't join them, they're gonna kick you out?" Chronos asked.

Gemini snorted, "Can you blame them?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Dunno," said Vertigo. "I haven't really thought about it. It's just – oh, I dunno – I just can't see it. I mean, me joining the X-Men. You know what I mean?"

"Well…"

"He means he has problems with words like: dedication; responsibility; commitment…" Gemini said.

"She's right, I don't even know what those words mean…" said Vertigo lazily. "I don't want Cyclops to offer me something using words I don't know the meaning of."

"What about us?" said Chronos. "Will we get kicked out too?"

"Nah," said Atlas. "We're not 18 yet. I think that's the cut-off point. Vertigo's managed to drag it out an extra year, somehow."

"Yeah," said Vertigo. "You guys can at least fob him off for another year. Or two, in Chronos' case."

"Maybe we don't want to fob him off," Gemini retorted. "Maybe we'll accept his offer."

"I bet your dad would love that…"

She bristled, "My dad will respect any decision I make concerning my own life!"

"Oh, sure. Pyro will be absolutely ecstatic to see his pretty little daughter all dressed in black and out there fighting against the forces of evil, to save the humans…"

"Why should that bother him? He doesn't hate the humans any more."

"I refuse to believe that."

"Believe it," the girl said. "Ask him yourself."

"So what about the Brotherhood?"

"The Brotherhood's over, man," Atlas said.

"I won't believe that either."

Gemini laughed, "Like I said, ask my dad. He'll tell you himself. The Brotherhood is over. He doesn't care any more."

"Why not?" said Chronos.

"Because he's realised there are more important things in life. And I've finally found a boyfriend he approves of…"

Atlas smiled and gave Gemini a gentle and affectionate squeeze. Vertigo looked at them, his arms folded, his face unreadable as always, and drawled, "So you think the Brotherhood's dead just because Pyro doesn't want to lead it any more?"

"Uh-huh," said Gemini. "Well, that and the fact that it has, like, no members, no base, no objectives…need I go on? It's in the past. We've moved on now, all of us."

"Yeah, none of us hates the humans any more," said Atlas.

"Really? After everything they've done?" Vertigo asked.

"There is such a thing as forgiveness," Gemini answered. "You can't hate a person forever just because of something they did years ago."

She looked Vertigo straight in the eye as she said this, and his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Neither Atlas nor Chronos noticed, but even if they had, neither of them would have realised the significance. Everyone knew there was history between Vertigo and Gemini, but nobody except the girl's father knew exactly what it was.

"Forgiveness? You've been reading the Bible again, haven't you?" was his eventual response.

Any reply Gemini might have made was forestalled by the sudden arrival of the five children. Aged between eight and ten, the youngsters appeared on the scene without warning, all talking at once and clamouring for the teenagers' attention. Each of them was excitedly describing their experiences of the stealth exercise in the forest, and the thread of the original conversation was lost. Soon Gemini was being dragged off towards the school by the three young girls, who wanted to show her something they'd found in a magazine. Then the two boys – Turtle and Icarus – began dragging Atlas away in the opposite direction. They'd discovered a patch of weird-looking mushrooms, and they wanted to know whether or not they were poisonous. Vertigo and Chronos found themselves alone.

"What you said just then," said the red-haired Scottish boy. "You really think someone might restart the Brotherhood?"

Vertigo shrugged, "Dunno. Nothing's impossible."

"Gemini did have a point, you know. There's nothing left from the old days."

"How would you know? You weren't even there."

"I know I wasn't. But still – you have to agree that's a problem."

Vertigo said nothing, and Chronos sensed that the conversation was over. The older boy started walking back to the school, and Chronos followed him.

"You can't stop looking at Gemini, can you?" Vertigo said suddenly.

Chronos gave a start, and tried to hide his surprise, "Wh – what are you talking about?"

"Come on. You spend half your life staring at her."

"I do not."

A sigh, "You really don't know how to lie convincingly, do you?"

"You're trying to say _you_ don't fancy her?" Chronos tried to rally.

A laugh, "No, I burnt that bridge a long time ago."

"But you stare at her too. I've seen you."

"There's nothing wrong with appreciating beauty…" came Vertigo's lazy response. "Even if it only exists on the surface…"


	3. Chapter 3

It was just after dinner when the teenagers got together and headed for Scott's office. They knew he'd be there, marking papers or making grand decisions or something else suitably headmasterly. The door was open when they arrived, so Gemini poked her head inside to make sure Cyclops was there. Scott looked up from his desk and waved her inside, "Come in, Alexandra. Are the others with you?"

"Yeah, we're all here."

"Sit down please, all of you."

The four young people took seats in front of Cyclops' desk and waited to hear what he wanted to say to them. Briefly surveying the group through his ruby glasses, the headmaster began, "All right, I think you probably know why it is I've asked you to come see me. In case you don't, it's quite simple. I've been speaking with the other senior X-Men and we'd like to invite each of you to become fully-fledged members of our order. I believe Helios called it 'going full-time'."

Gemini or Vertigo must have been about to speak, because Scott put up his hand to forestall them, and continued, "Now I realise this is a big decision. I'm talking about committing your lives to striving for peace between humans and mutants on a world-wide basis. It isn't something that should be underestimated, taken lightly, or entered into half-heartedly. It isn't a decision one can make in five minutes, and I'm not asking you to do that."

Gemini nodded. That made sense to her.

"So, here's what I'm proposing," said Cyclops. "We'd like you to accompany us on a mission, to give you a flavour for the kind of things you can expect if you do decide to join us. Consider it the very final stage of your training."

"What's the mission?" asked Atlas.

"You'll receive a full briefing before we leave, but here are the basic details: as you may know, Oculus has recently been appointed as the UN's Special Ambassador for Mutant Relations. He's organised a conference, to take place this week in New York, to discuss the issue of mutants receiving recognition in the UN's Charter for Human Rights. In many countries mutants are unfairly treated because the law doesn't recognise our human rights. The goal of this conference is to get that to change."

"Where do we come in?" Gemini asked, with just a hint of impatience in her voice.

"I'm coming to that. The obvious problem is that there are still many people, in America and other countries, who don't agree that mutants deserve equal treatment with humans, and who will do whatever they can to disrupt or even sabotage the conference."

"Surprise…" Vertigo said mockingly, slouched low in his chair.

The leader of the X-Men ignored him, "Clearly it's essential that security at the conference is at the highest level. Oculus has requested that the UN allow a special group of mutant security personnel to join the UN's own special forces teams. The UN have agreed, and we are going to provide that mutant security force."

"When do we leave?" asked Gemini.

"Tomorrow. Report to the briefing room just after lunch. We'll be splitting into a number of groups and taking up different assignments around the conference centre. Your group will be headed by Crusader."

He paused for a moment, glancing at the clock on the wall, "She should be here any minute. She'll want to discuss the mission with you in more detail."

As if on cue, they heard footsteps in the doorway, and the teenagers turned round to see Annie Rosiçky hurrying into the room.

"Annie," he said. "I was just telling them that you're going to be leading one of the security teams in tomorrow's mission."

"Sorry, Scott, but I'm not going to be there," she shook her head. "Something's come up."

"What?"

"There's been another killing in Israel. I have to get out there and try to stabilise the situation and find out what's going on. I'm sorry this is such short notice, but we really have no choice."

"Understood. Leave whenever you're ready."

Crusader nodded, and left.

"What's that all about?" asked Gemini curiously.

Scott sighed, "A bit of a crisis, I'm afraid. During the last few weeks, several leading Israeli figures have been murdered in Jerusalem. The Israelis are blaming the Palestinians, and the Palestinians are insisting that for once they've got nothing to do with it."

"What does it have to do with us?"

"Israeli intelligence believes the murders to be the work of a single man. So far he's managed to evade capture by their security forces. In fact, nobody's managed to catch even a glimpse of him."

"And you people think he's a mutant?" asked Vertigo.

"Yes," Scott answered. "The evidence points to one single, deadly Islamic mutant assassin."

Chronos shrugged, "So what? Why do we – why do you care?"

"Because the Middle East is highly unstable at the moment. Actually, it's highly unstable all the time, but now it's worse than normal."

"Why?"

"Well, as you know, Israel possesses nuclear weapons. But recently, it's been rumoured that some have gone missing."

"Missing?" said Atlas.

"Believed to have been captured by the Palestinians. Israeli sources won't confirm or deny either way. Anyway, the UN are worried that there may be a nuclear attack from either side. They're desperate to keep the region as stable as possible until the missing nukes can be tracked down. That's why they want this assassin to be stopped. They've agreed to Oculus' suggestion that we send someone to hunt down the killer."

"But why one of our – your people?" Chronos repeated.

"Because it's what we do. It isn't only humans who stand in the way of peace. There are mutants who don't want it either. It's our job to make sure they don't succeed. It isn't simply a case of waiting for the humans to stop hating us. We have to sort out our own problems as well."

Atlas nodded. Gemini got back to the original thread of the conversation, "So Crusader isn't coming with us tomorrow?"

"Not any more. It's a pity. We wanted to give her some experience of leadership. But no matter. We'll work out something else instead."

"Is there anything we can do to prepare?" she asked.

"Not really, other than get a good night's sleep and don't fall over and break your leg or anything like that."

"Is my dad coming with us?"

"Pyro? No. I've discussed it with him, and he said he'd like to sit this one out."

"Does he know you're asking me to go?"

Scott raised his eyebrows, "I haven't mentioned it to him, but I'm sure he's aware of it. There isn't much that escapes his notice. Will it be a problem?"

"I don't think so; I was just wondering."

"All right. Well, that's all for now. I'll see you at the briefing tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 4

Gemini hadn't been entirely truthful to either Cyclops or Vertigo. The truth was she had no idea how her father would react to her being invited to join the ranks of the X-Men. Pyro kept his feelings on most matters close to his chest, and it often took some amount of coaxing from Gemini before he would even share them with his daughter. She wasn't even sure what his feelings towards the X-Men were. It was true that he was now taking a more active role at the school – the stealth exercise for the little kids had been his idea – but she had no idea how he stood in relation to the ideals that Xavier had laid down for his charges to follow. While perhaps she no longer regarded Pyro with the same near idol-worship she'd felt as a child, she still loved and highly respected her foster father. She desperately wanted to know his opinion, and be reassured that she had his blessing on what she was taking part in tomorrow.

She found him in his room, sitting in his chair and staring at the small photograph that sat on the table. He seemed to have been spending a lot of time doing this recently, and Gemini wasn't sure what to make of it. She knew who the girl in the photograph was: a 17-year old named Jacqueline Cartier, a mutant girl who Dad had fallen in love with years ago, before Gemini was born. Jacqueline had been killed by humans, murdered in front of Pyro's eyes, and it was that grisly experience which had driven him to take over the Brotherhood after Magneto's death, in an attempt to destroy humanity and gain revenge for Jacqueline's demise.

Now those times were over. While she knew he still hadn't fully come to terms with the loss, and possibly never would, Pyro had lost his thirst for revenge. Those responsible for Jacqueline's death had also gone to their grave, and she guessed he was too tired and bitter and sorrowful to carry on the fight any longer. He had adopted Gemini as his daughter and devoted himself to her care and upbringing. That had been three years ago. Now that she was seventeen and growing increasingly independent, he was spending more and more of his time alone, brooding silently over his terrible memories and the love that had been stolen away from him.

"Dad," she said as she entered the room. "Got a minute?"

Pyro looked over, and smiled at his daughter, "Sure, honey. What's up?"

"I've got some news. And, well, I'm not too sure how much you're going to like it."

"Cyclops asked you to join the X-Men, didn't he?"

_How did he know that_? Gemini wondered.

"Yeah," she said.

"So what answer did you give him?"

"Well, he didn't ask us to give him an answer on the spot. He wants us to go with him on a mission tomorrow, so we can, you know, see what it's like to do what they do."

Pyro said nothing. Gemini waited, then grew impatient, "So, I – uh – I guess I wanted to know what you think."

"Well, what do you think? That's the important thing."

"I want to do it," she said, then quickly added. "I want to go with them on the mission, I mean. I'm not saying I want to join them. I don't know yet."

"OK. Well, I'm not going to stand in your way, if that's what you're worried about. It's your decision. It's your life, and you've got to shape it the way you want. Not the way I want."

"Yeah. Thanks, Dad. I guess my problem is I don't really know what I'd be letting myself in for if I did agree to join them."

"Why don't you ask Cassandra? She joined up, didn't she?"

"Yeah, last year. Good idea, I'll talk to her. Thanks, Dad."

Pyro watched as his daughter hurried from the room, on her way to the communications room downstairs. When he heard her footsteps descending the stairs, he stood, walked over and closed the door. Silence fell over the room once more, and he resumed his seat. His gaze once more fell upon the photograph of the girl he had once loved.

- - -

It was several rings before somebody picked up on the other end of the line.

"Uh – hello?" came a very tired voice. "London office."

"Hey, Helios, it's Gemini," said the girl. "Can I talk to Cassie?"

He yawned, "Do you have any idea what time of night it is here?"

Gemini's eyes suddenly widened. She'd clean forgotten about the time difference! She looked at her watch. Great. It would be the middle of the night in London!

"Sorry!" she said quickly. "I forgot. I'm not used to you guys being so far away."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "We weren't getting much sleep anyway."

"Why, what's wrong?"

Helios sighed, "Cassandra's having…visions. Or something, I dunno. She keeps moaning in her sleep, or waking up screaming."

"What's the matter with her?"

"Dunno. She says she doesn't want to talk about it. I said 'Well, if you can't tell your fiancé, who can you tell?' but it didn't change her mind."

"I'll talk to her," said Gemini. "I mean, maybe it's, like, a girl thing."

"Yeah, could be. She's awake now, I'll put her on. I'm going back to sleep."

The phone evidently changed hands, and an equally tired-sounding Cassandra answered, "Hello?"

"Hey, Cassie, it's Gemini. Are you OK?"

"Guess so. What's up?"

"Um – Helios says you're not sleeping well?"

"No. I'm…I'm having some pretty intense dreams."

"Intense? What do you mean by that?"

"I don't really wanna talk about it. So, uh, why are you calling us at this time in the morning? I guess there can't be an emergency, or you've have told me already."

"I'm sorry, Cassie, I forgot about the time difference. I just forgot. Stuff just slips my mind sometimes, you know how it is."

"Yeah, I know. So what's up?"

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away."

"The X-Men have asked me to join them," Gemini explained. "And, well, I'm not sure whether I'm ready for the commitment. I mean, I think I can agree with what it is they're trying to do. But I don't know whether or not I'm ready to devote the rest of my life to it. Anyway, my dad suggested I talk to you about it, since you made the same decision last year."

"I don't know how much I can help you, to be honest," said Cassandra. "I wasn't really in the same position. When Dominic asked me to marry him, he was already committed to his role with the X-Men. We talked about it and agreed that I would make the same commitment. It's an integral part of our life together. We knew we couldn't get married if one of us was committed to it and the other wasn't."

"Hmm…I see."

"What does Atlas think about it? Have they asked him too?"

"Yeah. I haven't really spoken to him about it. I think he probably feels the same as me: happy to go along with it, but wondering if it's the right time. But then he and I aren't really in the same situation as you and Helios. We're certainly nowhere near getting engaged."

"Well, talk to him. See what he thinks."

"OK. Thanks, Cassie. They've also asked me – asked us – to go along with them on a mission tomorrow, to give us a taste of what it's like."

"Yeah, they did the same for me, to make sure I knew what I was asking to join up to. Are you going on the mission?"

"Yeah."

"Well, see how you feel after that. And talk to Atlas. And call me back if you still feel unsure."

"OK, Cassie."

"Right, I'm going back to bed now."

"Right. Sleep well. See you later."

They hung up.

Gemini decided she would take Cassandra's advice, and went off in search of Atlas. Hopefully he was inside somewhere. If he was outside in the gardens or the woods, it was virtually impossible to find him. Even when he wasn't deliberately hiding, Atlas had a strange ability to blend in and disappear into any woodland environment. She headed upstairs to check the guys' bedroom. On the way she passed Chronos. His eyes strayed towards her chest and stayed there.

_Creep, _she thought, _three years you've known me and you still stare at me like you've never seen a woman before._

"Have you seen Atlas?" she asked.

He obviously hadn't been expecting the question as he reacted in surprise, his eyes moving up to meet hers for a second, before returning to their original target.

"No, haven't seen him."

Gemini walked on past him, knowing full well that he'd now be staring at her backside. A few years ago it would have made her angry. Now she just pitied him. She turned the corner at arrived at the guys' dorm. The door was open, which was good, as she didn't really feel like knocking. Gemini glanced inside the room, but there was no sign of Atlas. Only Vertigo was there, lying on his bed reading something – probably a porn magazine. She turned back and headed downstairs. Maybe Atlas would be in the games room. Just as she reached the bottom of the stairs –

"Auntie Alex!"

Gemini turned in astonishment, just as a tiny three-year old girl came hurrying down the hallway towards her.

"Athena!" she cried in delight.

She kneeled down and gathered up her little niece in an affectionate cuddle.

"What are you doing here, honey?" asked the surprised teenager. "Shouldn't you be home in Florida? Where's your Mommy?"

"Mommy's back there," said the tiny child.

Gemini carried her niece back the way the little girl had just come, until she found Athena's mother: Gemini's older sister.

"Hey, Alex!"

"Hi, Melody!" the duplicator smiled brightly. "What brings you here? I thought it was my turn to visit you!"

"It is, but that's not why I'm here. I mean, I wanted to see you, but there is another reason."

"Such as?"

"Your professors told you about the conference on mutant rights that's taking place tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, I'm one of the keynote speakers."

The girl raised her eyebrows, "Really? Wow! I knew you were doing some work to try and promote mutant rights, but I didn't know you'd planned anything this big!"

"It's taken a lot of preparation. I couldn't have done it without your professors' help."

"How long are you staying?"

"For as long as the conference, and then a little while after that. I also wanted to take another look around the school. That's the third reason why I'm here."

"How come?"

"Because when Athena's ready to start school, I'm going to bring her here."

Gemini frowned, "Huh? But Athena's not – "

She turned to look at the little girl she held in her arms.

"Athena, honey," said Melody. "Show Auntie Alex what you can do."

The small child squirmed round in Gemini's arms until she was facing the other way. Two or three bags sat on the floor just inside the doorway – obviously Melody's luggage – and little Athena seemed to have focussed her attention on them. She inhaled, taking a deep breath, and then suddenly released it, exhaling as hard as she could towards the bags. For a moment nothing happened, then the luggage swayed and fell on to its side.

"Wow," Gemini said. "What was that?"

"Her mutation," Melody explained. "Her lungs have some strange ability to compress air and then release it with incredible force. That's all I know so far. I only found out about it recently. I caught her trying to blow the cookie tin off the shelf in the kitchen. Didn't I, honey?"

"Can I have a cookie now?" said Athena. "You said I could have one when we got here!"

The teenager looked confused, "But – but I thought mutations didn't start showing until puberty. She's only three."

"I know," said Melody. "I don't really understand it myself. Some scientists are saying that mutations are appearing earlier in kids' lives as time goes on. Something to do with rapid evolution. That's their theory, anyway."

"So that's why you want to bring her here? Wow, that's awesome! We won't have to travel hundreds of miles to visit each other any more!"

Melody nodded, then her face turned serious, "You understand why I didn't want to put her into a regular school."

"Totally. I know exactly what she'd go through."

The young mother sighed, "I feel like a hypocrite, almost, because here I am championing human-mutant peace, and yet I won't send my daughter to a school with humans."

"There's nothing wrong with that. It's still too early. Things will get better, but until then…"

Melody said nothing. Gemini's attempt to reassure her sister didn't appear to have worked. She was about to try and think of something else to say, when she was suddenly interrupted:

"_Jacqueline?!_" a voice cried from the stairs.

Pyro came running downstairs, and across the hall towards them. Frightened, Athena clutched Gemini. As he got closer, her foster father stopped. He stared at Melody, and then blinked, "Oh. Melody. I mean, uh, Ms…I'm sorry. I – I thought – you remind me of somebody."

"Dad? You all right?"

"Yeah, Gemini, I'm OK. Your sister just – looks a bit like – you know. With the way the light was sitting – and I wasn't expecting to see her here…"

Melody extended her hand, "Nice to meet you again, Mr, uh…?"

"Just call me Pyro," he said, shaking her hand. "I don't use any other name."

"Hey, Dad," said Gemini. "We have another mutant in the family."

"We do?"

"Sure thing. Athena, this is my daddy."

Athena turned shy and wouldn't say anything to Pyro, burying her face in Gemini's chest. Pyro said to Melody, "Can I take your bags upstairs? Do you know which room you'll be staying in?"

"I think so," said Melody, then turned to her sister. "Alex, I'll need a few minutes to settle in and get unpacked. Can I leave Athena with you?"

"Sure."

"Wait, I almost forgot. Have you heard any word from Symphony?"

Gemini winced at the name, and shook her head, "No, and I'm glad. As far as I know, she still thinks I'm dead."

"I guess so," said Melody.

"Why?"

"Oh, I've been trying to get in touch with her. Since Mom died, I haven't heard from her at all."

Alexandra shrugged. Nobody really knew what had become of Symphony. She'd been the middle sister of three, her age exactly halfway between Melody's and Alexandra's. Foolkiller had taken Gemini away from her family when she was eight, and she hadn't seen Symphony since then – but even back then, Symphony had been difficult, the black sheep of the family. She had hung around with the wrong kids at school. She had been caught trying cigarettes and soft drugs at the age of ten. She had shouted and sworn at her mother, and tried to slash Melody with a knife when her older sister attempted to talk sense into her. Symphony had bullied Gemini constantly, knowing that her mother hated her younger sister for being a mutant. Gemini wasn't really too unhappy that she had never seen her middle sister again. All she knew was what Melody had told her since then – Symphony had dropped out of school at fourteen and gone off to get a job with some modelling agency. She had always been the most beautiful of the three sisters, and had never missed an opportunity to remind the other two of that fact. That was the last the family had heard of her. After that, their mother had died, and Melody had believed Gemini to be dead also.

"Why do you want to get back in touch with her?" Gemini asked. "I thought she hated our guts. Remember what she used to do when we were kids?"

"Well, she may have changed. As you said, we were kids. Maybe Symphony's still as horrible as ever, but it's worth giving her a chance."

Alexandra brightened, "I guess. Well, let me know if you find out anything."

"Yeah, I will. See you in a bit."


	5. Chapter 5

Chronos lay on his back, on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Gemini. Why wouldn't she ever speak to him? He'd known he was in love with her from the first moment he'd set eyes on her. He'd tried everything he could think of to get her attention. He'd tried talking to her, sitting next to her, telling her she looked great…he couldn't stop staring at her. She was like a magnet to his eyes. It was like everything that was perfect and lovely about the female form had been brought together and put into one girl. It was because of her that he'd first agreed to stay at the school. Regardless of what it might take, he was determined to win her heart and make her his wife one day.

OK, so she was going out with Atlas just now, and had been for as long as he could remember, but that could change. There was nothing special about Atlas. Chronos knew he could offer Gemini so much more. He desperately wanted to spend some time with her, instead of just hanging about with Vertigo all the time. He closed his eyes, and sighed. He had no idea how he ought to approach her. He kept having these dreams, these fantasies, about her being in mortal danger, and him coming to her rescue. She would be on the very point of death, and he would freeze time around her, and carry her away to safety. Her gratitude would make her fall in love with him, and that would be that. They would live happily ever after. Huh. If only it could work out that easily. Unfortunately, Gemini wasn't the kind of girl who liked to play damsel-in-distress. She had far more experience of life-or-death situations than he had. If anything, it would probably work out the other way round, her saving _him_. He didn't think he could bear it if that happened.

There was also the problem of the girl's father. Pyro was still obsessively protective of his daughter when it came to her dating. Somehow Atlas had managed to win Pyro's trust, and was permitted to go out with Gemini. Chronos knew _he_ didn't have Pyro's trust – the fire-starter had made that clear enough on several occasions. The boy wouldn't have been surprised if Gemini wore a chastity belt, to which Pyro had the only key. Well, regardless of that, the simple fact was that there was no way he could get near Gemini without first getting past Pyro. That was only the first problem, and Chronos didn't even know how to deal with it. Vertigo might have known – he could always smooth-talk people into giving him what he wanted – but Chronos was too embarrassed to ask.

Just as he was thinking about Vertigo, the ninja's voice cut into his thoughts, "Hello – who's _this_?"

"What?" said Chronos, sitting up.

Vertigo was kneeling on his bed, looking down out of the window, and Chronos moved over to see what had caught his attention. Their bedroom window had a view of the front gardens of the estate, and the path that led to the front door of the mansion. It was down this path that the object of Vertigo's attention was now walking. She was a girl probably in her late teens, tall (for a girl) and blonde, dressed in a white top and blue denim mini-skirt, carrying a bag over her shoulder. She continued to walk towards the school until the two boys' view of her was blocked.

"Wow," said Vertigo. "Nice legs. I wonder what she's doing here."

"You think she's come to stay here?"

"Let's go find out!"

The ninja immediately jumped from his bed and slipped through the doorway. Chronos, caught by surprise, hurried after him. He wasn't used to Vertigo moving any faster than his usual lazy saunter. Vertigo could move pretty fast when he chose, but he needed sufficient incentive in order to expend the energy required. Chronos was still struggling to keep up as Vertigo reached the bottom of the stairs and moved into the deserted hallway. Both of them looked towards the front door. They heard footsteps from outside, then the sound of the door-knocker being struck three times.

"Act casual," Vertigo instructed his companion.

Chronos tried his best. Strolling easily over to the door, Vertigo pulled it open. Standing outside, as he had hoped and expected, was the blonde girl.

"Can I help you?" he said smoothly.

"I – I don't know," she answered.

"Well, what brings you here?"

She looked at him blankly, "I – I don't really know that either."

Vertigo raised an eyebrow.

"Well, where are you from?" Chronos interjected.

"I don't know," she said.

"You don't know?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't _remember_?"

The girl was holding a piece of paper in her hands, and she held it out to them, "Look, I'm trying to reach the address that's on here."

"**Xavier's School for the Gifted, Westchester, New York**," Vertigo read. "Well, that's here."

She looked relieved. He asked, "So – what brings you to our door?"

"I told you, I don't know."

"OK…why are you trying to reach that address? This address, I mean."

"I don't know. It's the only clue I have."

"What are you talking about?"

The girl sighed, "I don't know! I don't know why I'm here! I don't remember where I came from or why I was trying to get here! I don't remember _anything_!"

"You've lost your memory?" Vertigo guessed.

"I guess so! All I remember is arriving at the train station with these clothes and this bag! Inside I found a piece of paper with this address. I asked around and found it was close enough to walk to, so – well, here I am."

"Here you are," he agreed.

"Now I just want to find out why I was coming here, and what happened, and why I can't remember!"

"Are you a mutant?" asked Chronos.

She blinked, "I don't know. I told you, I don't remember anything before today. Besides, what's that got to do with anything?"

Chronos looked at Vertigo. The ninja was still looking at the girl, admiring her figure. She frowned at them impatiently, "Look, is there someone who can help me? This is driving me nuts!"

"Sure, we'll help you," Vertigo said in a smooth voice. "Won't we?"

"Oh, yeah," said Chronos.

She looked at them expectantly. Vertigo asked, "Is there anything else in the bag?"

"Not much. Tissues, make-up and stuff. My train ticket, but half of it's been torn off. It doesn't say where I got here from."

"Why do you think you were coming here?" Chronos said.

Sounding frustrated, she snapped, "Look, I keep telling you _I can't remember_! I'd be delighted if I could just remember my own _name_, let alone why I came here!"

"Do you know what this place is?" said Vertigo.

"No, but I'm guessing from the description that it's a school," she said sarcastically. "For the gifted."

"Yes, it is. That's why we're here. We're gifted. Are you gifted too? Maybe that's why you were coming here."

"Maybe," she went on in the same sarcastic vein. "Or for all we know, I'm an itinerant one-woman circus, here to perform for twenty dollars a showing."

Vertigo looked at her deadpan, "Cool. I've got twenty dollars. I'll even lend you some juggling balls."

"You're making fun of me," she glared at him.

"No, no, this is how people normally act. You've just forgotten."

"Yeah, very funny, creep. I may have lost my memory but I still remember what an asshole is. And I'm looking at a pair of them right now."

"Hey, _I_ didn't say anything," Chronos protested.

"Is there anyone _else_ here I can talk to?" she demanded.

Chronos looked around, just as Shock and Rogue appeared from the door of one of the classrooms.

"Yeah. Come in," he said.

He and Vertigo watched as the girl brushed past them on her way into the building. The two X-Women stopped their conversation as they saw her approaching. When she was out of earshot, Chronos muttered, "That was a bit cruel, wasn't it?"

Vertigo said nothing. He continued to stare at the girl's legs until Shock led her off elsewhere. Then he turned to Chronos as if the younger boy hadn't spoken, and said, "Hey, are you going on the mission tomorrow?"

"What? Oh, yeah," said Chronos.

"Why?"

_Because I want to impress Gemini,_ he was too embarrassed to say.

"Uh, I guess it sounds interesting," he said lamely. "What about you?"

"Oh, I don't have any choice," Vertigo said lazily. "If I say no, Cyclops will show me the door and tell me to go get a job."

"You ever think of doing that?"

"Getting a job? You serious?"

"Well, what are you gonna do with your life? You don't want to get a job. It sounds like you don't wanna stay on here either. What else is there?"

Vertigo sighed, "I dunno…I don't think there's anything that would make me happy. I'd really like to go to back to the life I had before."

"You mean when you were in the Brotherhood?"

"Yeah. It was great. We didn't have all these stupid rules and moral issues that the X-Men force down our throats. Pyro pretty much let us do whatever we wanted when we weren't on a mission. Even when we were, he didn't care how we got things done, as long as we got them done. On top of that, we had a definite goal and we strove towards it. We saw what needed to be done, and just did it. Here – I dunno – they just seem to sit around talking about what should be done instead of doing it. They're not making any progress towards their goal."

"Isn't that what the conference tomorrow is about?"

"No, it's just more talking. Nothing's going to change as a result. I just don't see the point."

"Well…what would you do instead?"

"I don't see what was wrong with the way we did things before."

"What, you mean releasing a plague to kill off the human population? Come on, Vertigo, you can't be serious. You're kidding, right?"

"I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat."

- - -

After Melody had settled into her room, she put Athena to bed for the night, then told Gemini she was going to discuss some things with Cyclops regarding the conference. The mention of the conference reminded Gemini what she had been planning to do before the unexpected appearance of her older sister. She'd been going to look for Atlas and ask him what his thoughts were about the X-Men's offer of membership, and the invitation to go on the mission the following day.

He wasn't in the mansion – she had established that already – so he had to be outside somewhere. Gemini sighed, and resigned herself to the potentially exhaustive search to find him within the surrounding woodland. She headed downstairs and through the front door, wondering where would be the best place to start. The mid-evening sky was just starting to darken now as the sun slipped towards the horizon. There was a slightly chilly evening wind, and she shivered, still only wearing her summer dress. She could have gone inside to change, but she figured she'd warm up once she'd started walking. And the wind wouldn't be so bad in the trees.

As she headed across the gardens towards the trees, another gust of wind caught her hair, and brought a cascade of cherry blossom around her face. For a moment it reminded her of confetti, and that made her think of Cassandra and Dominic's upcoming wedding. She still thought of him as Helios, but Cassie wanted her to call him Dominic. The wedding wasn't far off, and she knew the two of them were spending most of their spare time planning it. It was to be held in England, as Dominic's family were paying most of the expenses. Cassie didn't have any relatives to speak of. Gemini had been eager to start shopping for a new dress straight away, but she needed to know what Cassandra's colour scheme was first.

She watched the cherry blossom dancing away on the wind, and she imagined Cassandra walking down the aisle. She knew her friend would look absolutely amazing; Cassie was extremely pretty and had the perfect figure for a wedding dress. Dominic didn't look bad in a suit either, though he hardly ever wore one, or anything smart for that matter. That was going to be one of Cassie's first ambitions as a new wife, to sort out her new husband's wardrobe!

Gemini's mind moved from the near future to the more distant future. She pictured herself walking down the aisle as a bride. What would that be like? On one hand she guessed it was every girl's dream to be dressed and prepared as the beautiful bride, but on the other hand, it was such an enormous commitment to make, to promise to share the rest of your life with another person. It alarmed her in a way that her friends were making that commitment so early in life. Dominic was almost 20 but Cassie was just 17. Barring any mishap, they'd be spending the next 50 or more years of their lives together. How could somebody make a decision that big? How could two people possibly get to know each other so well that they could be confident of their relationship surviving that long through everything that life might throw at it?

_Maybe it's just because I don't know anyone that closely_, she thought, _maybe it's different for everyone else_. She knew that there were rumours, whispers, people talking together, people who had seen that Gemini had been dating Atlas for going on 3 years now. That was about the length of time Dominic and Cassie had been together before engagement, and some people were wondering if there was another marriage coming in the near future. Gemini doubted it. Not that she didn't love Atlas, but she knew she wasn't in any way ready for anything as huge as a marriage commitment. She was pretty sure Atlas felt the same, but sometimes she did worry slightly: what if he did feel they were ready? What if one day he decided to propose? What would she say? Was she allowed to say 'not yet, please ask me again later'? Was she allowed to say anything other than a straight 'yes' or 'no'?

"Hey," came his voice from behind her, startling her.

She jumped, then turned to smile at him, "Hey!"

"Were you looking for me?"

"Yeah. Hug?"

Atlas slid his hands around her small shoulders, and held her gently in his arms. That was about as much physical contact as she was happy for him, or anyone, to have. Sometimes she would let him kiss her, but never anything more than a short meeting of the lips. She had suffered so much as a child, and she was so glad that Atlas understood how difficult it was for her to have a physical relationship.

"What do you think about tomorrow?" she asked. "About the mission, I mean. And about their offer in general, I guess."

"I'm not sure," he said. "I'm thinking it would be stupid not to go. If it turns out we hate what they do, we don't have to join up. But at the same time – "

" – it's like the thin end of a wedge?" she guessed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Even if we are still allowed to say 'no' after we go on the mission, it still feels like we've taken a step towards saying 'yes'."

"Yeah," he said. "And as much as I like being here, and I don't wanna go around killing people any more, it still feels like a really big step. Everything up until now has been like small increments, a little bit here, a little thing there, and us moving closer and closer towards being X-Men."

"And this feels like the final step," she agreed. "After this, there might be no turning back."

"What does your dad think?"

"He told me to ask Cassie. Who told me to ask you."

Atlas gently stroked her back, "I think it's important that whatever decision we make, we make it together. You and me, on one side or the other."

"I agree, totally," Gemini said, resting her head in his chest. "I'm so much stronger with you alongside me."

"Likewise. And we both think it's best to go on the mission and then see what happens afterwards, right?"

She nodded, and cuddled him contentedly, "Yeah, let's do that."


	6. Chapter 6

The voice came over the radio, "OK, Rogers. Carlson will be here to relieve you in eight hours. Have fun."

"Yeah, you too, sir," security guard Walt Rogers replied into his radio.

He barely managed to keep the bitterness out of his voice. While the rest of the security team were going out to get blitzed by drinking into the early hours of the morning, he was stuck here on the night shift. Again. He had no idea how Carlson and Di Sophistro and Kinsey managed to get the chief to put the schedules together, but Rogers _always_ seemed to end up with the night shift at the end of the week, while the rest of them hit the beers. He could always complain to the chief, but what was the point? They'd all been working here longer than he had. They were higher up the pecking order. Even after six months, he was still the 'new guy' and had to put up with this crap until they hired somebody newer. He sighed, and put his feet up on the security desk.

Trying to cheer himself up, he reasoned that at least the night shift was the easiest. Local anti-nuclear protesters staged rallies on an irritatingly frequent basis, but those happened during the day. None of them was quite desperate or dedicated enough to keep their stand going into the night. And most of the security was automated now anyway. There was no real need for any human presence. It was only in case there was some catastrophic system failure, somebody had to be on hand to report it. The electronic locks and scanners and defence turrets did his work for him. It made the job a lot easier. It also made it a lot more boring. Pulling a newspaper out of his bag, he settled himself in to pass the next eight hours.

It was probably only an hour later when the security console in front of him suddenly burst to life. He nearly fell out of his chair in surprise as alarms began blaring and red lights began flagging on nearly every sector of the security grid. Jolted into action immediately, he flung the newspaper aside and focussed intently on the security read-outs in front of him.

"What?!" he shouted. "That's impossible!"

Sensors showed that almost every sector of the reactor complex had been breached! But there was no way _that_ could have happened without the external sensors first picking up something! What the hell was going on? He reached immediately for his radio, "Maximum security alert! All sectors breached! Cause of breach unknown! Security grid seems inactive! Send security teams now!"

There was no reply. Nothing came over the radio except the dull hiss of static. Damn it, the radio was out! There was no way to report what was going on!

_It's OK, calm down,_ he told himself, _it must be just a system error. There's no way the grid could have been breached instantaneously like that_.

He reached for the operator's manual to remind himself how to perform a system diagnostic from the security console. He had only just flicked it open when he heard the footsteps. His head jerked up in alarm.

_Uh-oh. Not good! There __**is**__ somebody inside the reactor!_

Rogers instinctively reached for the gun he'd only ever fired in training. Ha. Training! He had never been trained for a situation like this! The only scenarios covered in training had been those where he sat safely in the security office and called for assistance against any intruders who managed to survive the automatic defence systems. Apparently nobody had considered the possibility that the system might fail, and an intruder might actually confront him. He'd been confidently assured that nobody was that good. Now it seemed that somebody was.

Well, what the hell. He wasn't afraid. His father had fought in the Gulf, his uncle in 'Nam, and his grandfather in the D-Day landings. He wasn't going to back down like a coward from whoever had managed to get past the security bots and in here. Holding the gun in the two-handed grip he'd been taught, he walked slowly in the direction of the footsteps. They were in the corridor just outside, and approaching the door. He stood just off to the side of the door, weapon pointed at whoever attempted entrance.

The door was slowly pushed open. For a moment nothing happened, then slowly a figure glided inside the room. In an instant, Rogers took in the newcomer's strange appearance: clad from head to toe in loose-fitting black robes, with a black turban wrapped around his head, and only his eyes visible between its folds.

"Who the hell are you?" Rogers asked incredulously.

In the very same second, however, his mind reached only one conclusion and began screaming at him: _Muslim! _Now it began to make sense! Islamic terrorists had somehow gotten inside the reactor! He could only imagine how they had pulled it off, but it didn't take much imagination to work out what their intentions were. No doubt they were here to steal any nuclear technology they could get their hands on! Or worse, set the reactor to explode into a meltdown!

"Freeze, asshole!" he yelled, trying to sound braver than he felt. "Get down on the ground!"

The turbaned figure did not move. Rogers heard more footsteps from outside. _Damn it, there must be more of them!_

"I said get down!"

The man dressed in black finally moved, but not in obedience to the shouted command. Rogers saw his hands reaching inside his black robes, and guessed the guy had to be a suicide bomber reaching for the detonation switch. His instincts took over from his brain, and he pulled the trigger…once, twice, three times.

He was standing less than ten feet away from the Muslim, and at that range nothing should have been able to prevent the bullets smacking into the other man's head. And yet, in a fraction of a second, the terrorist had pulled from inside his robes two impossibly long swords, raised them in front of his body, and used them to deflect the bullets.

Rogers blinked. What he'd just seen couldn't possibly have happened. Nobody on Earth had reactions _that_ fast. Caught in panic and indecision, he didn't know what to do. He did nothing. The Muslim likewise did not move, continuing to hold the two blades protectively in front of himself, his eyes narrowed and just visible between the swathes of the turban. The initial panic began to fade, but before Rogers could decide what to do next, another two figures appeared in the door.

Strange. These weren't Muslims. At least, not as visually obviously as the first one was. Both were young men, probably in their twenties. The first was wearing an outfit that was entirely a bland grey colour, and a pair of wrap-around dark glasses that rendered his eyes entirely invisible. The second wore a tight-fitting white body-suit, and was without doubt the most attractive human being Rogers had ever set eyes on. Rogers was married and had three children, and had never experienced attraction towards another man before, but even he could not deny that this kid's body was the most stunning…

Rogers shook his head to clear it. Suddenly he had the most incredible feeling of disorientation and dizziness. He tried to steady himself and focus on the intruders, but now there were six of them. There were two Muslims, two kids in dark glasses, and two gorgeous kids in white body-suits. No, wait, now there were only three. His eyes were glazing over and slipping into double vision. His mind was swimming, and he stumbled, falling to his hands and knees.

"Give me the gun," said the gorgeous boy.

The voice was low, commanding, and seductive. Rogers did not hesitate, reaching out and handing the weapon to the grinning twenty-something. He could not resist. There was nothing he wouldn't have done for this kid. The good-looking boy took the gun, and tossed it to the one with the dark glasses. Without looking, the third man reached out and grabbed the gun out of the air. Rogers staggered to his feet and tried to concentrate. The dizziness was starting to fade now. He could see clearly. He blinked, and shook his head to shake the cobwebs out of his thoughts. What the hell had come over him? He could see now that there was nothing special about this kid. He was just a young man in a white body-suit. There was nothing unusually attractive about him.

Rogers' mind snapped back into clarity. Never mind that! That didn't matter! They had his gun! Somehow they'd made him hand it over! What the hell had he been thinking? There was only one thing he could do now. There were more weapons in the emergency security closet. Taking off at a run, the guard headed straight for it.

"Dervish! Stop him!" the white-clad kid yelled.

The motionless Muslim suddenly burst into movement, cutting a dizzying, whirling path across the room towards the fleeing Rogers. Both blades slicing through the air like lasers, the Islamic swordsman closed in. Rogers fumbled with his key in the security closet, but managed to get it open, and grabbed one of the shotguns. Pointing it at the rapidly advancing Muslim, he pulled the trigger.

At the exact same second, the kid stopped whirling, dropped to his knees in front of Rogers, thrusting both blades outward. The security guard howled at the top of his lungs as his shoulders gave way to an eruption of unimaginable pain. The shotgun went flying out of his grasp, the shot he had fired embedding harmlessly into the wall. Through the shock and the agony he felt himself falling forwards on to the floor, and he scrambled desperately to get back on his feet, reaching for the shotgun. He couldn't feel his hands, and he couldn't lift himself off the floor. Blood was pouring on to the floor from somewhere, and an object suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. Turning his head, he tried to get a better look. Why couldn't he move?

He screamed as he realised what the object was. It was his arm. Severed from his shoulder, and still clutching the shotgun, the limb filled his vision as shock and pain and fear drove every last shred of rationality and cohesive thought from his brain. He felt something against his side, as the Muslim's foot rolled him over. Now he could see his other arm, perfectly sliced from his body just like the first one. A hand grabbed his hair and lifted his head upwards. A face appeared in front of his eyes. The dreadful, harrowing dizziness had returned, but what was left of Rogers welcomed it, as it numbed some of the agonising pain.

"Now talk to me," said the voice – it was the gorgeous kid in white again. "What's the security code for the reactor core?"

"Alpha Pi Sigma, seven six eight," he mumbled.

"Thank you. That's all we needed to know."

The face disappeared. The dizziness went away. The pain returned. The kid looked normal again. Through a combination of shock, agony, and loss of blood, Rogers finally blacked out.

The young man in white glanced at the young man with the dark glasses, "All right, we've got the code. Start working on getting into the core."

Without a look in his direction, the other kid moved towards the security console. The Muslim was busy wiping the blood from his swords, and the white-clad kid said, "Nice work, Dervish."

"Thank you."

"Could you find somewhere to dispose of _that_?" he pointed towards the unconscious or dead security guard. "I just washed this outfit and I'd rather not get human blood on it."

"You can almost smell it, can't you?" the other agreed. "Humans. They're worse than pigs."

"_Masquerade_?"

The kid in white tapped his communicator, "Yeah, go ahead, Boss."

"_What's your status_?"

"We're gaining access to the core as we speak."

"_Any trouble_?"

"Nope," said Masquerade. "Dervish had to get his blades dirty, but nothing we couldn't handle."

"_Right. The others will be with you soon_."


	7. Chapter 7

Gemini turned from admiring herself in the mirror, and looked at the other girls in the room, "How do I look?"

"You look great!" said Bibi enthusiastically.

Phoebe nodded her agreement. Accel ran her hand along the tight black leather encasing Gemini's left arm, "Cool. When will they let us get some?"

"When you're much, much older," came Rogue's voice from across the room.

"Hey, Gemini's only seventeen!" Bibi pointed out.

"Yes, and you're only eight."

Bibi sulked, and rather cheekily mimicked Rogue's voice, "Yes, and you're only eight. You're only eight. You're only _eight_."

Accel and Phoebe both giggled, and Gemini struggled to stop herself from doing the same.

"Kimberly," said Rogue in a warning tone.

Bibi fell silent. She knew she was in trouble when her proper name was used. Rogue turned her attention to Gemini, "Ready to go?"

"Yup, I think so."

"Good luck!" Accel said. "Hey, when can we go on a mission?"

"Shortly after you get your uniforms," the woman informed them dryly. "All right, Gemini, let's go."

Outside the female changing room, they found most of the others waiting for them. Atlas was there, with Vertigo and Chronos standing nearby. Gemini walked over to stand beside her boyfriend.

"Hey," said Atlas. "You look good in it."

"No kidding!" exclaimed Chronos, who couldn't keep his eyes off her.

Gemini turned her back on him and said to Atlas, "Thanks, so do you."

"We had to hold up the mission waiting for you," said Vertigo sarcastically. "Why do women always take a year and a day to get ready?"

"Oh, I was just preparing myself for having to face your razor-sharp wit again," she retorted.

Chronos sniggered appreciatively. Gemini ignored him. She had noticed something strange about the uniform Atlas was wearing. There was an extra sort of pouch on his left hip.

"What's that for?" she asked, pointing towards it.

"Medical bag," he explained. "It's got all my medicinal herbs inside. It's more compact than the First Aid kit they tried to get me to carry – and I reckon it's more effective."

"So who's leading our group now that Crusader isn't gonna be here?"

He pointed behind her. Gemini looked over her shoulder to see Shapeshifter approaching. She smiled. Surprisingly casual and laid-back for a grown-up, and somewhat disinclined to enforce the rules, Chris was popular among the teenagers and the children. If the kids had been asked to designate the school's 'cool teacher', it would have been him.

"Hey, guys," he greeted them.

"Hey, Chris," they responded.

"How are the uniforms? Comfortable?"

"A bit tight," Gemini said.

"That's to stop you from breathing too loudly when you're on a covert mission."

"Can we play with the stuff that's in the pockets?" said Vertigo.

"Sure, that's how I pass the time during stake-outs. If you remind me later, I'll show you something cool you can do with the electro-binoculars. Just don't tell Scott."

Gemini giggled. That was another thing she liked about Shapeshifter. Although he was an adult, he didn't try to talk down to young people. He gave the impression of just wanting to be one of the crowd.

"Chris? Is your team ready?" came Scott's voice.

"Just waiting for you, chief."

"OK, get going."

Shapeshifter looked at the teenagers, "All right, guys, let's go."

- - -

The conference centre was one of those "modern art" buildings that Gemini thought were such a waste of money. It was all shiny glass surfaces and bizarre stone edifices that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever, other than signify that a lot of money had been spent on constructing this place. The surrounding gardens and fountains were nice, though. At least she thought so. Atlas thought they were horrid and artificial.

Shapeshifter was busy explaining to them their team's responsibility during the mission. He had unfolded a plan of the conference centre, and pointed towards it, "Here's where we'll be stationed. It's the south side of the building, the back door, if you like. All the dignitaries and speakers and important people will be entering and leaving through the front main door, so we don't have to worry about attacks on them. Our main problem is that the back door is used as the deliveries entrance. Obviously the people at the conference will need lots of food and drink and other stuff, and all of it will be brought into the building through the back door."

"You think terrorists might try to get in that way?" Gemini asked.

"That's our primary concern, yep. Regular security staff and police will scan every vehicle that enters the compound, so the chances of terrorists smuggling in any weapons or explosives are pretty small. Still, we have to be ready for the possibility. We're authorised to search any vehicle or person we think looks suspicious. You've all had bomb-disposal training, right?"

The four teens nodded.

"Great. Our uniforms have built-in radiation detectors, so we'll know straight away if anything radioactive is brought on to the compound. Here, you'll need to put these on as well."

He handed each of them a communications device: a small ear-piece with a microphone connected.

"You'll need to keep comm. chatter to a minimum," he said almost apologetically. "We're using the same frequency as the other teams, and if Scott hears you messing about, he'll tell me off, and possibly hit me with a stick."

"Can we choose the stick?" said Vertigo.

"No. Now listen up, this bit's important. If something _does_ happen, and we get separated, you _have_ to let me know where you are, and whether you're all right, or if you need help. If you think you've seen a terrorist, by all means investigate – but let me know what you're doing, OK? If you do go off alone, try to stay with at least one other person. Best if you stick in pairs. Atlas, keep an eye on Gemini, and vice versa. Vertigo, Chronos, you two are pretty much joined at the hip anyway."

From the jet's cockpit they heard Scott's voice, "We're coming in to land in a few moments. Get ready to disembark."

Chris rolled up the map, "Right, this is when I'm supposed to give you some big speech about the importance of the mission and what it'll do for human-mutant relations. But I can't remember how it goes, so we'll skip that, and just say we did it, OK? You all know what's at stake."

"OK," they said.

The jet began to descend vertically towards the landing pad in the conference centre compound.

"Right, let's move," said Chris, standing up to hit the ramp release switch.

- - -

The crowds were lining both sides of the main promenade that led to the front entrance of the conference centre. At first, Gemini had hoped that these were just interested spectators hoping to catch sight of a famous politician or a celebrity. It wasn't long before she realised that this was not the case.

"Mutant scum!" a voice screamed the second they emerged from the jet.

A host of other voices joined in, and soon the crowd were attempting to surge forward, being restrained by makeshift barriers and by police.

"Oh boy," said Chris.

Chronos glanced at him a little nervously. Atlas and Gemini looked at each other uncertainly.

"Wow, what a welcome," Vertigo sneered. "I'd almost forgotten how much the humans love us."

"Relax, it'll die down," Chris said. "We have to walk that way to get to our position. Just look straight ahead and ignore anything they say. Don't respond to anything – that's the key."

"You sure it'll die down?" asked Chronos dubiously, eyeing the hostile crowd.

"Oh yeah. I've seen this happen before. In a few minutes they'll realise we don't have pitchforks and goat hooves, and that we're not going to huff and puff and blow their house down. The initial rush will calm down, and it'll just be verbal from then on."

"Why do they hate us? We're just standing here. We haven't even done anything."

"It's not hatred, it's fear," Chris assured him. "They're afraid of what we _might_ do, all the stuff that's in the tabloids and on TV. You know, '**Mutants Ate My Baby**', stuff like that."

"You're kidding yourself," said Vertigo. "It is hate. And it'll never change. It'll never go away."

Shapeshifter either didn't hear, or chose not to respond. Once he was fairly certain the police had got the crowd under control, he began walking, and signalled the teenagers to follow him. As he had said, the route to their position took them straight down the main promenade, between the crowds of hostile humans on either side.

"Scum!" a voice yelled. "Die and burn in hell!"

That was the cue for another round of insults thrown, and a few of the more courageous protesters to throw themselves against the police barriers, in an attempt to get at the mutants. Gemini was nervous, and walked close to Atlas to try and feel safer. She had to admire Chris' restraint. He was ahead of them, walking as calmly and easily as if he was on the beach. Maybe it was easier to take when you'd seen it all before. Inside, part of Gemini couldn't believe she was in this situation. In her younger years, walking past the insults of humans without reacting would have been unthinkable. Back in the old days, she would have responded instantly and angrily, and some of the humans would have gone home without a parent, or a brother or sister. Dad had raised her and trained her that way, to fight back against any threat, to destroy anyone hostile before they could destroy her.

Somewhere along the line, her attitude had changed. Was it simply down to growing older, gaining extra maturity, wisdom, and patience? Was it the teachings of the X-Men that were beginning to have an influence on her? Or was it the Bible that Oculus had lent her, that she was still reading her way through? Whatever the reason – perhaps it was a combination – she knew something had changed. The anger inside was no longer there, or at least, it took a lot more to kindle it. She was prepared to think things through first. She was prepared to listen. She was ready to give peace with the humans a chance, or was at least leaning towards it. She knew that Atlas felt the same way.

"Freaks!" an onlooker spat. "You should all have been drowned at birth!"

Vertigo's head snapped round. The young man in a red anorak who'd pushed his way to the front of the crowd suddenly found himself the target of the ninja's murderous glare.

"Come on, freak!" the man taunted. "What are you gonna do, use your powers on me?"

Vertigo tensed his muscles. In his mind's eye, he saw himself moving, running across the ground towards the human, flipping through the air over the police barrier, his foot snapping out and crushing the sub-creature's windpipe. It would take less than five seconds. There was nothing the human could to do stop him.

But then the rest of the crowd would riot, and the police would start shooting. And Shapeshifter would get pissed off, and Vertigo would be kicked out of the school and told to get a job. And that was the whole point of why he had agreed to come along on this stupid mission, so he didn't have to go get a job. He couldn't just give into emotion. He had to think long-term.

With an effort, he turned his head away, and kept on walking. _Not this time_, he told himself. Behind him he could hear the man in the red anorak still yelling insults, but he managed to screen them out.

"You all right?" murmured Chronos from his side.

"I should have killed him."

"What? For insulting us?"

"He didn't just insult us. What he said – "

He didn't finish. Chronos prompted, "What?"

"No. It doesn't matter. You wouldn't understand."

"I wouldn't?"

"No, you wouldn't. Forget it."

- - -

The opening ceremonies of the conference had begun over an hour ago. Gemini wondered how Melody was getting on. Her older sister hadn't come with them on the jet; she'd made her own way to the conference earlier to get a few things set up. She'd left little Athena at the school; apparently Pyro had agreed to look after her, though Gemini suspected he had probably delegated this task to Accel and Bibi and the other youngsters. They would be over the moon at having a little girl to play with.

Melody was due to be one of the first speakers this afternoon, and Gemini wondered how she was feeling. Nervous? Confident? Maybe even a bit of both at the same time? Confident of the message she wanted to put across, but nervous about actually standing up and delivering it? It was hard to tell. Although they were sisters, they hadn't done much growing up together. Even now they were still catching up on the childhood years they hadn't been able to share. While Melody had been safely at home, Gemini had been – well, she was trying not to think about that any more.

"_Delivery approaching your position_," she heard Shock's voice coming through the communicator in her ear.

"Understood," said Shapeshifter. "All right, guys, let's check it out. Gemini, Atlas, you're with me. Vertigo, Chronos, keep guard on the door."

They could see the van now as it approached the rear door of the conference building. Shapeshifter moved towards it, and Gemini and Atlas followed him.

"I'll talk to the driver and ask to see his ID," he said. "You two check the back of the van. Don't worry about any large crates; they'll have been electronically scanned at the entrance. Concentrate on any smaller packages, and check for hidden compartments."

The van slowed and came to a stop.

"The drivers have been informed there's a second layer of security," added Shapeshifter. "If anyone refuses to stop, then we can start to get suspicious."

Gemini walked round to the rear of the vehicle and pulled open the doors. Atlas gave her a boost to climb inside, then joined her. As Shapeshifter had said, the van's contents were mostly large crates – apparently containing soft drinks. They ignored these, as he'd said, and looked around the interior for anything that might be suspicious. There were a couple of smaller boxes which Gemini flipped open to look inside. Nothing out of the ordinary. She looked at Atlas, who shrugged. The two teenagers dropped back down to the ground, and closed the van up.

"Seems clean," she said to Chris.

He nodded, then turned to the driver, "OK, go ahead."

That proved to be the pattern for the next two hours and a half. Vehicles arrived, stopped, and were checked. The only moment of interest had come when one of the vans had turned out to contain a secret compartment under the floor. However, this had only contained a selection of hardcore Russian pornographic films. Vertigo appeared to be considering stealing some, while Shapeshifter sent the suitably embarrassed driver on his way.

"Are missions always this boring?" Gemini asked eventually.

Chris nodded, "Pretty much, I'm afraid. We don't see action as often as you might think. That's one reason why we want to give you a taste of it before you commit yourself. It isn't all danger and excitement. A lot of the time it's tedious and boring, like now. But hey – if nothing exciting happens on this mission, then it's a complete success. Look at it that way. And just because it's boring doesn't mean it's not important."

"Yeah, I guess."

"_Another vehicle's coming_," came Rogue's voice over the comm.

"10-4. Gemini, Atlas, let's go."

This time it was a larger van that approached, and Shapeshifter went out to meet it just as he had done with the others. The two teenagers followed him. In an instant it became clear that something was not right. Instead of slowing down, the van was picking up speed, accelerating faster and faster as it drove towards them. Shapeshifter was directly in its path. Whoever was driving must clearly have seen him, but made no attempts to slow down. At the last second as the van was bearing down on him, Chris used his power, his entire body liquefying and splashing to the ground beneath the wheels of the oncoming vehicle. The van screeched to a halt, and the rear doors were thrown open. From inside a group of ten or fifteen people suddenly emerged, wielding baseball bats and other weapons.

"Death to mutant scum!" one of them yelled. "Kill them all!"

"Get ready!" Vertigo shouted to his friends.

The baseball-bat-wielding mob descended on the four teenagers, who had barely seconds to prepare themselves. Gemini ducked easily beneath a swinging bat, and twisted to kick at the head of the man holding it. The attacker was knocked to the ground. Vertigo flipped over in mid-air, kicking out with both feet to send two others sprawling. Chronos stopped time just long enough to slip round his assailant, and punch the woman in the side of the head. When time restarted, she was thrown backwards and knocked senseless. Atlas pushed an earth tremor towards the two men running at him. They lost their balance and landed heavily on the ground.

From beneath the van a puddle of liquid suddenly solidified into Shapeshifter. The teenagers had gotten themselves a moment's respite, which Gemini used to summon her twin. Materialising into existence by her side, her duplicate was just in time to intercept a man trying to outflank them. Chris tackled the gang from behind, a karate chop to the lower arm forcing one to drop his weapon. The man who was apparently the leader of the anti-mutant protesters had produced a gun, and was aiming at Chris. Shapeshifter liquefied once more, and the bullets passed harmlessly through his fluid form. The man turned, and aimed instead at Atlas. Gemini's twin hurried forward, throwing herself in his path, and three bullets smacked into her spine. The twin died instantly, dematerialising back into nothing, and Gemini screamed as she felt the shared pain of her doppelganger. She stumbled and collapsed to the ground. Two more attackers descended on her, but another earth tremor from Atlas sent them reeling backwards. Chronos rushed to Gemini's side, but she was already back on her feet.

By this time somebody must have summoned the police, as armed officers suddenly appeared on the scene from all directions. As quickly as they had appeared, the attackers were gone, cuffed and taken away into police custody. Shapeshifter approached the teenagers, "Oh well, just as we were complaining about things getting too boring."

They laughed, and felt some of their tenseness and nervousness dissipate.

"Are you guys all right?"

"Yeah," the teens answered.

"What happened?" Gemini demanded. "How did they get through the security cordon?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Chris. "Wait here while I talk to the police."

He headed off towards a group of cops. Gemini looked round at the three guys. Chronos had suffered a minor injury, and Atlas had smeared a herbal remedy on to a bandage and given it to him.

"Nice to know the humans share our desire for peace," Vertigo said sarcastically.

"Those were just a few idiots," said Gemini. "They don't represent the whole human population."

"Well, I don't see anybody out here waving placards saying **We Love Mutants**, do you?"

"No – but that doesn't mean they don't exist."

"Well, I've never seen a purple elephant, but I guess that doesn't mean they don't exist, huh?"

She rolled her eyes, "Shut up, you moron."

"Huh. I see you're picking it up already."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The X-Men. That's what they do. Anyone who disagrees with them, they just tell them to shut up."

"No, Vertigo, most people tell you to shut up because you talk a lot of bull."

"So that's it? End of discussion? You're right and I'm wrong because you think I 'talk a lot of bull?'"

"We weren't _having_ a discussion. You were just mouthing off for the sake of being an asshole."

"And who decides that? You? What if I said you were just mouthing off for the sake of being a pretentious little slut?"

"Hey!" Atlas said angrily.

Gemini shook her head, looking at Vertigo contemptuously, "I can't believe I ever seriously considered dating you."

"Yeah, well, as I recall, it didn't take much to get your legs open in those days."

Atlas moved towards Vertigo threateningly, but Gemini held her hand out to stop him, "I can handle this."

He stopped. Gemini turned back to the ninja, her face holding even more contempt, if that were possible, "Actually, as I recall, at that time I was suffering from a serious mental trauma, and you took advantage of me."

"Hey guys, what's going on?" came Chris' voice from behind her.

"Nothing," all four of them said.

Chris raised his eyebrow slightly suspiciously, but didn't press the matter, "All right, I spoke to the police. They don't know what happened. Their electronic scanner turned up nothing on the van."

"What?" said Gemini in disbelief. "How could it miss twenty guys sitting in the back?"

"I don't think it did," said Chris awkwardly. "This…well, I don't have any proof, but…"

"You think they let them through on purpose?" asked Vertigo.

"Why would they do that?" Chronos asked.

"Why do you think?" the ninja spat.

Atlas and Gemini looked at each other a little uncomfortably, then at Chris, who shrugged, "I dunno, guys. Your guess is as good as mine right now. They said they would 'look into it'. In other words, 'do nothing'. I guess it's possible they let them through to see if we were as good as we said we were."

"How good did we say we were?" asked Atlas.

"Pretty darn. Anyway, I've informed Scott, so he'll do any shouting and hitting with sticks that needs to be done."

"Any of the others run into trouble?" said Gemini.

"Not so far. You all did great, by the way. You kept yourselves safe and managed to stop any of those nutters from getting inside the conference centre. I couldn't have asked for anything more."

She smiled. Chris continued, "Well, the mission must go on. We stopped those guys, but anything could still happen. Hopefully anybody planning a similar attack will now know better than to mess with us. And any of the police who _did_ try to help them won't dare pull a stunt like that again."


	8. Chapter 8

**Evening**:

"So how did you get on?" asked Gemini. "How did your speech go?"

Melody gave a sigh, then a shrug, "About as well as I expected, really. Mine wasn't a popular viewpoint. A lot of people still aren't ready to think about peace."

The duplicator frowned, "I thought you said we were getting somewhere…"

"Oh, we are. A few months ago we couldn't even have organised this conference. The fact that people have agreed to come to it – even people who say they're completely opposed to peace – means we've gotten somewhere. It's going to be a long and slow process, but we're _definitely_ seeing progress."

"I guess."

"How did you get on?" said Melody. "Any problems?"

"Well, yes and no, I guess. We were attacked by a mob."

"No! What happened? You didn't get hurt, did you? Is everyone OK?"

"Yeah, we're fine. It wasn't anything we couldn't handle. But – "

"But what?" the woman prompted.

"I dunno, it's just that they shouldn't even have been able to get near us in the first place. It's almost as if the cops _let_ them through."

"Why would they do that?"

"Dunno. Vertigo says because the cops want us dead just as much as the mob who attacked us."

"Do you believe that?"

"I don't know what to believe. Chris said they – the cops, I mean – were testing us to see how good we are. But I dunno…hey, what's the schedule for tomorrow?"

"The morning will be a discussion of whether mutants should be permitted to serve in the armed forces. The afternoon focuses on the presence of mutants in schools."

"Are you speaking?"

"Not tomorrow, but I'll be hearing the arguments from both sides, and I can enter into a debate if I wish. Will you be there?"

"In the afternoon, yeah."

"Alexandra? Can I see you for a second?" came another woman's voice from the doorway.

Gemini looked round, to see Shock standing in the door.

"Go ahead," said Melody. "I need to go check on Athena anyway."

"OK."

They left the room, Melody heading upstairs to the room she was sharing with her little daughter.

"What's up, Fliss?" asked Gemini

"We've got a new student," said Shock. "I take it you haven't met her yet?"

"Nope. Who is she?"

"Well, it's complicated. She's having some trouble settling in. You'll understand why when you meet her."

"She's a mutant?"

"We think so. We're running a blood test to make sure. We've put her in your dorm just now, because she looks about your age, and we'd like you to spend some time with her and help her feel at home."

"Sure thing."

"Great. Thanks, Alex. Hey, Chris tells me you gave a good account of yourself today."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Good work! You'll be an X-Woman in no time! If that's what you want, of course! I'll catch you later, Scott's called a meeting."

Gemini headed upstairs to her dorm, to find the new girl. She smiled. She'd be glad to have another girl for company. It was a pain sometimes having just the guys to hang around with. It hadn't always been like this. There had been four of them in that dorm once. But Aqua had moved out after marrying Gladiator three years ago, and neither of them had been seen or heard from since. Cassandra had moved into Helios' flat in London when the two of them got engaged. Helios jokingly called it the X-Men's London office. Crusader was still around, but she had never been much fun to hang around with, and was now entirely consumed by her duties. Gemini hoped the new girl would turn out to be a good friend.

She pushed open the door of the girls' dormitory, and stepped inside. Sitting on the bed nearest the window was a tall blonde girl, who looked over as she heard the door open.

"Hi," she said, a little uncertainly.

"Hey," the duplicator smiled. "I'm Gemini, or Alexandra. What's your name?"

"I don't know. Look, to cut a long story short, I've lost my memory, OK?"

Gemini blinked, "OK…"

"Sorry, that was a bit abrupt, I know, but I've gone through this exact same exchange with at least three people now."

"Right, I understand."

"Thanks."

"So – what do you want me to call you? I mean, until you remember."

"Dunno. I overheard some of the young kids referring to me as Amnesia."

Gemini made a face, "That's cruel."

"It'll do for now."

On the bed beside her was a small shoulder bag. Gemini pointed to it and said, "I'm guessing somebody's already asked what's in your bag…"

"Yeah. There's nothing much inside. Nothing that tells me who I am."

"And that's all you have?"

"Yup. The last thing I remember was getting off the train at the station. I don't know why I came here or where I came from, or why I didn't bring anything else with me. I don't even have a change of clothes!"

"Well, you can borrow mine, if they'll fit. You're a bit taller than me."

"Thanks. This is driving me crazy."

The girl known as Amnesia lifted her hand, and Gemini saw she was holding a piece of paper.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's a flyer for some conference that's in town," said Amnesia. "I was holding on to it when I got off the train."

Gemini looked closer, "Hey, it's the UN conference. The one about mutant rights. You know, it's been on the news…oh, I'm sorry. I guess you don't remember."

"No."

"It's been set up to discuss the inclusion of mutants in the UN's Charter for Human Rights. I was there this afternoon."

"The professors here think I'm a mutant. They're running tests to find out."

"Yeah, they told me that too. Hey, wait a minute," said Gemini suddenly. "Do you think that's why you're here?"

"What?"

"The conference. Maybe you came to New York for the conference."

"I think it's more likely I was coming here to the school. The address of this place is written on the back."

She turned the flier over, and Gemini read the school's address. Amnesia said, "I'm waiting for your professors to get back to me with the results of the blood test. Once I know whether I'm a mutant or not, I'll try and decide what I should do. They said I could stay here until my memory comes back."

"OK. Do you want the guided tour?"

"Sure."

They left the dorm and Gemini showed the other girl around the building. When they got to the ground floor, they bumped into Vertigo and Chronos going the opposite direction.

"Hey, look who it is," Vertigo said lazily. "Remember us?"

"Very funny," Amnesia glared at him.

"Ignore them, they're creeps," said Gemini.

"Yeah, I noticed."

The guys and the girls went their separate ways, and Gemini and Amnesia walked past the door to the elevator that led down to the X-Men's base.

"OK, through here is the games room – " Gemini began, when she realised the other girl was no longer by her side.

She turned to see Amnesia still standing in front of the elevator door.

"What's up?" asked the duplicator in confusion.

"This door…" the blonde girl said slowly. "Where does it go?"

"Downstairs. There's an elevator."

"What's down there?"

"All sorts of stuff. We're not really allowed down there unless we're on a mission."

"A mission? You mean, like a church? Is this a religious school?"

"No, no," said Gemini. "I meant a mission as in – oh, forget it. Sorry! Bad choice of words. Don't worry about it just now. They'll tell you about it themselves better than I can."

"OK. It's just…"

She reached out and ran her hand across the door.

"What is it?" said Gemini.

"I'm not sure. I think – I dunno – it's almost as if…"

Gemini said nothing, and waited.

"…I think I remember this door," Amnesia said finally.

"Huh?"

"It just came to me as we went past. I remember this door. I know where it goes."

"You do?"

"Yeah. There's a – a base or something down there. Some machine. Something you fit over your head, and – and – it amplifies – "

"That's right!" Gemini exclaimed. "Xavier's telepathic amplifier! But how did you know that?"

"I don't know. I just remember it. As we walked past, it just came back to me…"

"But that means – "

"Yeah," said Amnesia, turning to face the smaller girl. "It means I've been here before."


	9. Chapter 9

"It's not impossible," said Storm. "There have been many young people who stayed at the school for only a few days – young mutants on the run – who chose not to remain, and left to make their own way in the world. We don't keep records of them. This girl Amnesia is probably one of them. Now that's she's here, her memories of this place are resurfacing. That's probably the explanation. She's one of the kids who came here as a runaway but didn't stay long."

"But how many of them would know about the base and Cerebro?" asked Logan.

"Probably none," she admitted.

"Exactly. Something doesn't add up. And besides, at least one of us would remember her."

Scott nodded to Gemini, "Thank you, Alexandra, for bringing this to our attention."

"What do you think it means?" asked Gemini.

"I don't know. We've got the results from the blood tests – she is definitely a mutant – and I suspect this mystery is connected to her powers in some way. If only we knew what they were. She herself obviously doesn't know about them."

"Has she done anything else unusual?" asked Storm.

"Not as far as I know," said Gemini.

"Could it be telepathy?" asked Scott. "Alexandra, you've been down to the base before. Maybe Amnesia read your mind without realising it, and thought your memories were her own."

"I guess that could be it. Oh, except my dad's trained me to know when a telepath enters my mind. I'd have sensed at least something."

Storm shrugged, "If I'm right about her being here before as a runaway, it would explain why she came back. Maybe she realised she made a mistake and couldn't survive on her own, and came back to ask for our help. That's why she doesn't have anything with her. She's run out of money."

"And on the way something happened and she lost her memory," Scott guessed. "It's possible, I suppose – but as Logan said, it doesn't explain where she got her knowledge of Cerebro."

He turned to Gemini, "Leave this with us, Alexandra. Spend some more time with Amnesia, help her to settle in, and see if she can remember anything else."

"Will do."

She turned to leave, and was at the doorway when Scott said, "It's strange, really – Amnesia has obviously been here before, but the first thing she remembers on returning is about the base and Cerebro."

"You think something happened to her?" said Logan. "I mean, to make that her strongest memory?"

"Yes, that was my line of thought. Anyway, there's no use speculating. Hopefully she'll remember more."

Instead of heading back up to the dormitory to meet Amnesia, Gemini decided to pay Melody a visit. She'd had an idea and she needed to ask her sister something. She checked the bedroom Melody had been allocated, but only little Athena was there, sleeping soundly. Gemini closed the door quietly to avoid waking her tiny niece, and went off in search of her sister.

When she finally found her, Melody was out on one of the first-floor balconies overlooking the gardens, and Dad was there too.

"Hey, guys," said Gemini. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"No, not at all," said Pyro. "Well, I need to go and speak to Chronos."

"What do you wanna talk to that creep for?" asked his daughter.

"Long story. Tell you later."

He left, and Gemini found herself alone with Melody.

"Mel, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Alex."

"This may seem like a weird question, but – is there anyone missing from the conference?"

"Missing?"

"I mean like somebody who was due to come and speak, but hasn't shown up."

Melody raised her eyebrows, "Actually, now you mention it, there is."

"Yeah?"

"One of the speakers we were expecting today never arrived. One of our key speakers. Fortunately we had her notes, and one of us managed to fill in for her. Why do you ask?"

"Because I think I might know where she is."

"Go on."

"Have you heard about the girl who arrived here just after you did? The one who lost her memory?"

"Someone mentioned her, yeah."

"I think she's your missing speaker. She arrived at the train station holding a flyer about the conference, without any memory of who she was and why she'd come here."

"Is that all you have to go on? It's a big of a long shot."

The teenager shrugged, "Maybe it is. But hey, come and meet her, and see if it is your missing speaker."

Melody shook her head, "I've never met the speaker, so I don't know what she looks like. I only have her address."

"Can you tell me it?"

"Sure, it's in my briefcase, downstairs somewhere. What are you going to do?"

"I'll take Amnesia – that's her name, for the moment anyway, until she remembers – to that address and see if it's her place. I bet it is. Then we just have to figure out why she lost her memory in the first place."

"Well, I'm not convinced, little sister, but I'll give you the address. It's getting chilly out here anyway. Let's go inside."

- - -

Vertigo glanced at his watch. Chronos had been in Pyro's room for about half an hour now. The ninja leaned against the wall and folded his arms impatiently. It was time for their weekly table tennis match, and Vertigo had a score to settle from last week. Vertigo and Helios together had invented the concept of "Extreme Table Tennis", a game in which anything and everything was permitted. Use of mutant powers and manipulation of other objects in the room weren't just permitted, rather they were essential for anyone who hoped to stand a chance of winning. Considering this involved Vertigo, with his impossibly fast reflexes and ludicrously flexible body, on one side; and Chronos, with his ability to stop time at will, on the other side, the games were fast and furious and almost impossible for spectators to follow. The game was forbidden by the X-Men, as they considered it too dangerous and destructive, but that didn't stop it from being played.

He sighed, and glanced over at the door. What was taking so long? Why did Pyro want to speak to Chronos anyway? Vertigo wasn't aware that the two of them had any sort of relationship, other than occasionally acknowledging each other's existence. Everyone knew that Chronos wanted to get into Gemini's panties, and Pyro wanted to keep him out at all costs. There wasn't much common ground. He guessed that was what their 'conversation' was about. Pyro had probably caught Chronos staring at Gemini, or something. Vertigo had dared Chronos to freeze time and sneak into the girls' shower room while Gemini was taking a shower, but as far as he knew the time-stopper had yet to summon the courage to try.

Bored and unwilling to stand and wait any longer, Vertigo sidled up to the door and put his ear against the wooden panelling. He wasn't really that interested in what they were saying, but listening to Pyro lose his rag at someone was always amusing.

"…discuss this again later," Pyro was saying. "I'm not asking you make a decision just now, but keep what I've just said in mind. Think it over and let me know if you're interested. And Chronos?"

"Yeah?"

"You will mention this to _no-one_. And when I say no-one, I _mean_ no-one. You don't want to see me angry."

"No, I guess I don't."

"All right, now go. I'll speak to you again another time."

"OK."

Footsteps coming towards the door.

"Oh yeah, and one other thing," said Pyro.

"Yeah?"

"Stop staring at my daughter. I've told you before: as far as you're concerned, she doesn't exist."

Chronos made no response. The door opened, and he emerged. Pyro pulled the door shut from inside.

"What was that all about?" Vertigo asked.

Jumping slightly, Chronos looked round in surprise, "Oh! I didn't see you there!"

"What did he want?"

"Oh, uh, he was just telling me off for staring at Gemini."

"You were in there for half an hour."

"Well, he was shouting and stuff, you know."

"Yeah. Well, whatever. Ready for our game?"

"Uh, no. Not tonight. Sorry, mate, I don't feel up for it."

Vertigo shrugged, "All right."

But as the Scottish boy walked away, Vertigo was deep in thought. It was obvious Chronos was lying. The boy simply didn't know how to sound convincing. And besides, Vertigo had overheard what Pyro had said, and it hadn't been about Gemini. At least, not all of it. What _had_ Pyro been talking about? And why had he wanted to talk to Chronos of all people? It had sounded as if he was offering him some sort of proposition…but what? Vertigo was intrigued. What was Pyro up to?


	10. Chapter 10

"Gentlemen, it's time to place your bets," came a sarcastic voice.

Six hands deposited half a dozen hundred-dollar bills on the table.

"Your bet, sir?"

The first blinked, a nervous twitch he'd developed over the years, "Fifty."

"Fifty?" said the second, sitting opposite him. "Twenty."

"Dervish?"

"Forty," said the third.

"Mr P?"

A bored and disinterested fourth voice said, "Thirty."

"Sixty," said the fifth.

"You think they'll make it that far?" said the sixth, raising his eyebrows.

"I have a hunch."

"You're not the only one…"

There were a number of sniggers around the room.

"You're funny," snapped one of them, a young man with a definite hunch protruding out of his back.

"I know," said Masquerade.

"You're all charlatans!" declared the seventh, a tall figure standing in the doorway. "Don't you have any faith in me?"

"Sure we do."

"So what's your bet?"

"Ten."

"Ten yards? I'm glad someone has confidence in my abilities."

"Don't make me regret it…"

"Don't worry. Right, I'll get into position. Somebody release the game."

Masquerade waved his hand at the blinking young man who'd bet first, "Hit the switch."

"Why me?"

"You're sitting next to it."

"Fine."

He pushed the lever that was beside his chair, and the six of them moved over to the large double windows that overlooked the forested enclosure outside.

"And they're off…"

Down below, they could see a group of frightened, huddled creatures, each looking fearfully about the artificial jungle environment they'd just been forcibly ejected into.

"They'd better move soon or your sixty yards is out of the question, Napoleon," Masquerade said softly.

"Only one of them needs to make it," he was reminded.

"Come on, move!" urged the kid who'd bet on fifty yards.

The animals below began to move, perhaps sensing that it was better to be on the move and seeking safety, rather than standing still and inviting whatever dangers might be lurking in the dense forest.

There was a sudden _phut_ and whoosh of air, and one of the animals collapsed to the floor dead, blood pouring from a neck wound. Terrified, the others began to scream, and run in all different directions.

"Look at them go!"

There was another _phut_ and another dead body hit the ground.

"Where is he, anyway?"

Nobody answered. The confident figure they'd been speaking to mere minutes ago was now a silent hunter among the trees. A blaring sound rang throughout the forested compound.

"They've reached ten yards!"

"Go on, hunt them down," said Masquerade.

"Twenty! Let them get to twenty first!"

"Beer?" someone said.

"Beer," the others agreed.

Another blaring sound.

"Twenty!"

"Go on! Forty!" Dervish yelled.

The beer arrived, and six bottles were opened.

"How many are still alive?"

"Mr P?"

"Two or three, it's hard to tell."

_Phut_.

"One less, anyway."

The blaring sound came twice more.

"Forty! That'll do! Kill them now!"

"One left," said the one called Mr P.

"I bet it's the big one," said Masquerade.

_Blare_.

"Fifty!"

"Come on, come on! Sixty!"

"Don't get your hopes up, Alexander…"

_Blare._

_Phut!_

"That's the last one! Sixty yards!"

"Yeah, nice work, Caesar," Masquerade said sarcastically.

"He wins again," moaned the blinker. "Why does he _always_ win?"

The winner, now five hundred dollars richer, shrugged, "I know the way Sagittarius hunts. And I know the way the animals will try to run. It's all logic."

"Nerd," someone said under a cough.

The door-frame was suddenly filled with the triumphant hunter, "Got 'em."

He strode into the room to grab the seventh bottle of beer. From behind him came a disparaging voice, "Oh, you guys are so pathetic…"

They all turned to face the young woman who stood in the doorway, shaking her head, dark eyes filled with contempt.

"What?" said Masquerade. "Hunting's a sport. What else is there to do around here, anyway?"

"Well, I'm sure you can find something better to do than watching a bunch of humans being slaughtered."

"Are you kidding? What could be more entertaining than that?"


	11. Chapter 11

**The next morning**:

"You'll be careful, won't you, honey?"

"Sure, Dad," said Gemini. "It's not too far away, and besides, I learned from the best."

He smiled, "When will you be back?"

"Hopefully for lunch. I'm due back at the conference centre in the afternoon. I think Cyclops knows where I'm going, but could you let him know anyway?"

"OK, honey. Good luck. I love you."

"You too."

Pyro jumped down from the cockpit to the hangar floor, and slammed the door closed. He watched a little nervously as his daughter began her first solo flight at the controls of the helicopter. He'd been giving her flying lessons over the last year or two, but this was the first time she'd ever flown the chopper herself without him alongside. He told himself to relax. Gemini was fully capable. He was just worried because any father would be.

As the helicopter rose from the hangar and into the skies above the school, Gemini turned to her passenger, "It won't take us long to get there. In a few minutes I'm certain we'll find answers to your questions."

Amnesia smiled, "I hope so. Thanks for doing this for me."

"Hey, no problem."

"You're absolutely sure about this? That I came to town as a speaker for this conference, but I lost my memory and never arrived there? That doesn't explain why I had your school's address written down. Or why I travelled here without any luggage."

Gemini shrugged, "I agree, some of it doesn't make sense. But we know now that you definitely are a mutant. Perhaps you just wanted to visit the school before going to the conference. And for all we know, you might have had luggage. But when you lost your memory, you didn't know where to pick it up. Or it could have been stolen."

"I guess."

"Don't worry. We'll have answers soon. Have you remembered anything else?"

"No. No, just that one thing last night when we were at the elevator. Nothing else has come back to me."

"Well, hopefully it's just a matter of time."

- - -

Gemini consulted the address Melody had given her, then looked up at the house once more, "Yup, this is the place."

"This is my house?" said Amnesia.

"Guess there's only one way to find out," said the duplicator, walking towards the front door.

The other girl followed her. The house was a one-storey building, with a small but well-kept garden in front. It appeared to be quite an affluent neighbourhood. They knocked, but there was no answer. A little optimistically, Gemini tried the door, but it was locked.

"I don't suppose you have the keys?"

"Nope."

"Well, no big. Just keep an eye out for cops."

Gemini knelt in front of the door and produced a thin piece of wire from somewhere on her person. Frowning slightly, Amnesia glanced around the street to make sure nobody was watching. The road was empty, apart from a white van parked further down. As the duplicator began to pick the lock, the blonde girl asked, "Where did you learn that?"

"Oh, in a previous life," Gemini murmured.

"Huh?"

"Forget it. Sorry! I've got to stop saying that."

Surreptitiously checking once more that the coast was clear, Amnesia turned back once more at the sound of the lock clicking open. Gemini opened the door and entered the house.

"Well, if I've just broken into your house, don't hold it against me," she remarked.

"I won't. What are we looking for?"

"Dunno. I guess it depends if you live alone or with your mom and dad. Let's try the bedroom. That's where the personal stuff will be."

As the building only had one floor, they had to search the house until they found the bedroom. It was situated at the rear of the house, and Gemini pushed open the door.

Neither girl was prepared for the spectacle that awaited them. Their eyes went wide with shock and they both gasped at the sight of the woman's body lying on the floor. The woman was curled in a foetal position and a pool of blood had soaked into the carpet beneath, and then dried. The putrid smell told them she couldn't have died too recently.

"What happened?!" was all Amnesia could squeal.

Gemini got closer to the body and kneeled down to investigate, but the decaying smell drove her back instantly.

"Ugh," she choked. "Well, I guess we found our missing speaker."

"So it isn't me? This isn't my house after all?"

"I guess not. There'll be a phone in the hall. Call the cops."

"I thought we wanted to avoid cops."

"We'll be long gone before they get here."

"So what does this mean? Why's she been killed?"

"I don't know. I don't know if it's a random murder or if it's part of something more sinister."

"What do you mean?"

"We need to get back to base and tell the X-Men."

"The who?"

"I'll tell you on the way. Come _on_."

After calling the police anonymously and telling them about the dead woman, the two girls hurried out of the house, closing the door behind them, and then began running in the direction of where they'd hidden the helicopter. The white van was still parked at the side of the road. Inside it, a figure watched the running girls through a pair of binoculars. When they were out of sight, he pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and blinked myopically. Reaching for his communicator, he initiated a call, "Boss?"

"_Report_."

"Confirmed sighting."

"_Excellent. I'll inform the others. Return to base and await your next assignment_."

"Roger. Over and out."

- - -

Scott and Storm were both at the conference centre as part of teams on the morning assignment, so Gemini looked for whoever was in charge during their absence. She eventually found Logan in the gym, with Chris, the two of them leading the younger children through some stretching exercises in preparation for a self defence lesson. She managed to catch their eye, and Chris called to the kids, "OK, guys, time out! Ten minutes!"

Of the five children, only Acceleratus looked disappointed to be told to have a rest. Folding her arms, she stood restlessly while the others sank down on to the floor, breathing heavily with the exertion.

"What's up, Alex?" said Chris, as he and Logan approached the seventeen year old.

Gemini told them what had happened: how she had taken Amnesia to the address of the missing conference speaker, confident that the two were the same person, and that exploring the house would reveal Amnesia's true identity – only to discover that she was completely wrong. The house wasn't Amnesia's. It was someone else's entirely, someone who had been killed. One of the key pro-mutant speakers, according to Melody, was dead, and it looked as if she had been murdered.

"What did you do?" asked Logan.

"Nothing," the girl said. "We called the cops and left. We'd already broken into the house and we couldn't risk being found at the murder scene. Is that what I should have done? I mean, I could have stayed and searched for clues, but I don't know how to investigate a murder scene."

"No, you did right," Chris assured her. "Without complete information, it was too risky to stay."

"That's what I thought. So what do you think? Was she murdered? Is somebody trying to sabotage the conference?"

Chris glanced at Logan, "What do you think?"

"I'm wondering how the press will treat this," Logan said. "Important mutant-rights conference speaker found dead. How long d'you think it'll take them to reach the conclusion that a mutant is responsible?"

"But she was a pro-mutant speaker," said Gemini.

"You think that'll matter to the gutter press? Damn it. If this breaks out, it could screw up the whole conference."

"Hey, a woman's _dead_. Doesn't that matter?"

"Of course it does, but we can't change the fact she's dead. All we can do is try and minimise the impact."

"And find out how she died," Chris added. "If somebody _is_ trying to sabotage the conference, we need to find out who it is, and stop them."

"So what do we do?" the girl asked.

"For now, let the cops do their job. Once they figure out what happened, we can move from there."

"How are we going to find out what they know?"

"Hacking police records isn't as difficult as you might think."

Gemini's eyes widened, "Are you kidding? The cops will have all sorts of computer security in place to prevent hacking!"

"It's never stopped him before," said Logan dryly.

From across the room, ten-year-old Accel called impatiently, "Hey! That's gotta be ten minutes! Chris! Mr Logan!"

Gemini smiled for a second. It was cute how Accel, despite spending the last three years of her life in New York, had never lost her at-times incomprehensible East of Scotland accent. She still pronounced Logan as 'Low-gun'.

"Get a move on already, you lazy slobs!" Bibi yelled cheekily, in Accel's voice.

Logan turned, "Hey! Watch your mouth, kid!"

"It wasn't _me_!" Accel wailed. "It was _her_! But come _on_! I wanna learn to fight!"

"You wanna learn to fight?"

"Yeah! Come on!"

"You wanna fight me?"

"Bring it on!"

"All right," Logan adopted a fighting stance, and extended his claws. "Bring it on."

"Hey, wait a second!" Gemini cried in surprise.

Chris shushed her, "Relax, he knows what he's doing."

"Come on, kid!" Logan called. "I thought you wanted to fight!"

Accel hesitated for a second, but only for a second. Then she was zipping across the gym floor towards Logan, her speed increasing until she was little more than a blur. She drove at his legs, trying to force him off balance, but he side-stepped, and her momentum sent her flying forward.

"There, you see!" said Chris. "Never attack in anger! Always keep yourself properly balanced!"

Curling her body into a somersault, Accel was back on her feet in an instant, just as Logan's claws swiped through the air towards her head.

"What are you _doing_?!" Gemini shrieked.

Chris held her back from intervening, "I said don't worry! They've done this before!"

Accel ducked to avoid the claws, and rolled over once more. Logan swiped at her again, but she jumped and flipped over in mid-air – a move Vertigo must have taught her – kicking out at Logan's head. He dodged to the side, taking the force of the kick on his shoulder. With a blur, Accel had run round behind him and aimed another kick at the base of his spine. This time she caught him unprepared, and the momentum behind the blow knocked him over. Her hands on his shoulders, she tried to pin him to the ground, but he was too strong, and threw her to one side. She put her momentum into another roll, and flipped upright.

"Come on!" she yelled, clenching her little fists.

"Better look behind you," said Logan.

Accel turned, and had only a split second to react before Chris' fist could connect with her head. She dropped to the floor, her legs scissoring out to catch both of his, toppling him to the deck. The other kids cheered loudly.

"All right, that's enough!" Gemini cried, hurrying to pull Accel away.

"What's the problem?" Chris smiled. "It's just an exercise."

"An exercise in what? Killing her?"

"What are you talking about? We haven't even managed to touch her yet."

"I'm glad, otherwise she might be dead!"

Accel rolled her eyes, "Relax, Gemini! I can look after myself!"

"Didn't Pyro ever teach you to fight?" asked Logan.

Gemini looked at him, "Yeah, but he didn't try to practically kill me when I was ten years old!"

Chris shrugged, "There's no point in going soft on Accel. She doesn't learn anything that way. When she's out in the real world, some people might try to hurt her for real. This way she'll be ready to defend herself."

"What he said," Accel agreed. "I gotta be prepared. Besides, Chris and Mr Logan are so old and slow, they can't hurt me!"

"No, but we can give you detention…"

She stuck her tongue out.

"But she's only _ten_!" protested Gemini, who still couldn't see Accel as anything other than the tiny child they'd rescued from a band of human vigilantes.

"You think a terrorist will care what age she is?" Logan countered.

"She's capable," Chris said. "Gemini, relax. We're not in the habit of murdering our own students. We're not doing anything to Accel that she can't protect herself from."

Gemini hesitated, "Well…if you're sure…"

"It might help her save someone's life one day," said Logan, giving Accel a sly look.

"Hey!" the ten year old retorted. "I already _have_ saved your life once, Mr Logan! Remember?"

"How could I forget?"

"'Cos you're _old_! Come on, let's go again!"

Chris shook his head, "No, not this time. It's someone else's turn. And you're still angry. Take a rest just now."

Accel moaned with disappointment and impatience, but obediently headed over to where the other kids were seated. Gemini said to Chris, "Are you leading our team again this afternoon?"

"Eh? No, that particular pleasure will go to Fliss today."

"Oh. Cool."

Gemini was smiling. She liked Shock – Fliss – too. Fliss was another of the X-Men who managed, or at least tried, to treat the teenagers as equals. She wasn't as cool or laid-back as Chris, but she did make more of an effort to try and understand what was going on inside people's minds. For someone who had to be over thirty, she was actually pretty good at understanding things teens cared about.

"Where is she?" the duplicator asked. "When should I report to her?"

"When Scott and the others get back from the morning shift, we'll have a meeting," said Chris. "You'd better come along since you're on the mission. You'll be briefed then, and Fliss will take you aside if she wants to say anything specific."

"OK. Is it safe for me to leave the kids with you? Are you going to try and kill any of the others?"

"We haven't killed any _yet_," he said sarcastically. "Give us some credit."

- - -

The young aide knocked tentatively on the door. She knew that her employer hated to be disturbed when he was busy. It had taken her nearly half an hour to summon up the courage to check on him. She had been expecting him to join her for breakfast, and on his non-appearance she had assumed he was skipping breakfast, or had called room service. After the morning meal they were scheduled to have a brief meeting to discuss the agenda of the second day of the conference, and then set off for the conference centre. They should have left half an hour ago – the driver was still waiting in front of the hotel – and she had finally taken the step of trying to attract his attention.

There was no answer to her knock on the door. The half-expected eruption of anger at being disturbed, was not forthcoming. She knocked louder, feeling a little bolder. After all, he'd _asked_ her to wake him if he overslept. He was slightly prone to oversleeping during long conferences, when he worked on rehearsing his speeches long into the night. Again there was no answer, so she knocked a third time.

"Mr Russell?" she called. "Sir, are you awake?"

After ten more fruitless minutes of trying to rouse her employer, she began to feel slightly concerned. He might sleep in sometimes, or lose track of the passage of time as he strove for perfection in preparation of his speech, but he had never been this late before. For a man who prided himself on his timekeeping and chided others for their lack of it, it was virtually unknown. The young aide summoned a member of the hotel staff, who opened the door with a key.

"Mr Russell?" she said nervously, as she ventured into his room.

The shades were still down and the room was dark; he must still have been in bed.

"Sir? You've got to wake up! We're going to be late for the conference if we don't leave!"

The lump under the bedcovers did not move. The aide crossed the room and shook him gently, "Sir?"

He didn't wake, or react in any way. The lights suddenly flicked on; the maid must have hit the switch. It was then that the young female assistant realised her employer had been murdered. His eyes were wide and bulging, staring at the ceiling above him. His throat was red and raw. He wasn't breathing. His hands were frozen in position, as if they had been clutching an attacker, trying to hold him off.

She screamed.


	12. Chapter 12

"This is the second murder in the space of a week," said Scott. "Both of them speakers at our conference. It's clear that something is afoot."

"Second? When was the first?" asked Iceman.

He'd been on the morning shift at the conference centre, and hadn't yet heard about the discovery Gemini and Amnesia had made. Gemini suddenly realised the X-Men were looking at her, expecting her to report.

"Um," she began. "Well, in case you don't know, Amnesia and I went on a little trip this morning. We were trying to find out her real name and stuff. Anyway, my sister told me there was a speaker missing from the conference, and I thought it had to be Amnesia. I mean, it all added up, right? She arrived on the train with a flyer about the conference, and lost her memory, just as one of the speakers goes missing and nobody knows where she is. Anyway – we went to the address where this missing speaker lived. We thought it'd be Amnesia's house. But it wasn't. There was somebody else there – somebody who was dead."

"Are you sure she was murdered?" Rogue asked.

The teenager nodded, "Yeah. I've seen enough dead bodies in my time to know when – well, you know."

"Thank you, Alexandra," said Scott. "Now you all know the details. We only just received a report of the second murder. Another of the speakers was found dead in his hotel room. There's no doubt that he, too, was murdered."

"Who was he?"

"His name was Henry Russell. He was one of the key speakers of the American anti-mutant lobby. His cousin's a very influential senator."

"What about the first speaker?"

"She was pro-mutant," Gemini said. "She was supposed to be on the same panel as my sister."

"So someone's murdering the speakers," said Logan. "One from each side so far. What do we do about it?"

Scott looked at Chris, "Do we have access to the preliminary police reports?"

"Oh, yes, those found their way on to my computer somehow," Chris said innocently. "The first murder seems the simpler affair. There's evidence the lock on the front door was tampered with recently – "

"Actually, that would have been me," Gemini admitted.

" – but besides that, no hard evidence as yet. They're scanning the scene for prints, fibres, etc."

"What about the second murder?" said Storm.

"Ah, that one's a bit more interesting. This time the killing took place in a hotel room, and they've found no evidence whatsoever of how the killer gained access. There's no indication the door or the window was forced. There are no keys missing, so at the moment it's a mystery as to how the murderer got into the room. The victim was strangled, so there's no doubt the killer was in there with him at some point. But how he got in and how he left, is currently unknown."

"What do the police think happened?" asked Fliss.

"Too early to say."

"Are the press aware of this?" said Logan. "Like I said before, once the tabloids get hold of this, it'll be just more anti-mutant propaganda. Everyone and his dog will be made to believe that a mutant is responsible."

"We don't know that a mutant isn't responsible," Pyro said.

The others looked at him. They were the first words he'd spoken at the meeting table. He hadn't actually been invited to the meeting, but had turned up anyway, and nobody felt like causing a fuss by asking him to leave. Scott and Storm were prepared to accept that perhaps he was only here for his daughter's sake, to make sure she wasn't being mistreated in any way.

"All we do know is that someone is obviously trying to sabotage the conference," said Scott. "Be they human or mutant, we can't allow this to happen. We and a lot of other people have worked long and hard to bring this conference about. We can't allow murderers or terrorists to destroy everything we've worked for."

"So what do we do?" someone asked.

"I've already contacted the UN to recommend extra security for the speakers. If they're being targeted, then they have to be protected 24/7 until the conference is over. Two people have already been murdered. We _cannot_ allow any more."

"I want someone protecting my sister," Gemini said boldly.

"I'll take care of that," Pyro said.

"Dad?" the duplicator asked in surprise.

"Since when do _you_ care about what happens to humans?" Logan asked.

Pyro said nothing. Scott broke the silence, "Very well. I've also offered our services as temporary bodyguards for the speakers, when they're away from the conference centre."

"So we're going 24/7 instead of just 9 to 5?" said Chris.

"Yes. Now this brings me to another problematic issue."

"What's that?" said Iceman.

"There aren't nearly enough of us to go around all the speakers. If even one more speaker is killed, it could ruin the whole conference, and we'll be right back to square one, where we were sixteen years ago. We're going to need some more help."

"What does that mean?" asked Logan suspiciously.

"I've contacted Helios and Cassandra, and they'll be arriving shortly. I've attempted to contact Gladiator and Aqua, but with understandable difficulty. No response so far."

"Crusader?" someone said.

"She's already in Jerusalem. Her mission is just as critical as ours. She can't be called back. There's been no word from Kurt either, and I think it's quite clear to all of us that Oculus and Gaia will never fight again."

"Why?" said Chronos.

"For reasons I don't have time to go into, they simply refuse to do so. All of which leaves us very short of numbers. Which is why I'm considering – only considering – bringing the children with us as well."

"Hey, we're not children," Gemini argued. "And I thought we were already part of the mission."

"I wasn't referring to you. I was referring to our younger students."

"What, you mean Accel and her friends? Are you crazy?"

Most of those present looked at Scott in surprise.

"Are you serious?" said Logan.

"Yes, we are," said Storm. "I can't overstate how important it is that the remaining speakers remain unharmed. If we wish to have a chance of ever achieving the Professor's dream, this is the deciding moment. We have to use _every_ resource available to us to keep those speakers alive."

"But these are _children_ we're talking about," Rogue protested. "The youngest is only _eight_!"

Iceman was shaking his head, "It's your call, Scott, but I think you're making a big mistake."

"I agree," said Fliss.

Scott spread his hands, "Well, if you can think of anybody else to call on, speak up. John, do you know anyone we could contact?"

"Nobody who'd be willing to protect humans, no," said Pyro dryly.

"Are you sure putting eight and nine year old kids in the direct line of danger is a good idea?" asked Chris.

"You tell us," said Storm. "You and Logan have spent more time training them than anybody. Are they ready?"

"No," said Logan. "With the possible exception of our little cheetah cub."

"He means Acceleratus," said Chris. "I'd say she may just about be ready to be taken on a mission, but as for the others…I wouldn't want to risk any of them."

"I can't believe any of you are seriously considering this!" said Gemini. "These are _children_, for heaven's sake! The whole point of childhood is that you don't _have_ to do any of this stuff until you're ready!"

"They can consider it part of their training," said Scott.

"That's what you said to us yesterday!"

"I know. I'm temporarily upgrading your status to full X-Men. You, Vertigo, Atlas and Chronos. We need you now more than ever to rise to the challenge and prove your worth. If you succeed, the promotion stays permanent."

"Assuming we want it," Vertigo muttered.

Gemini opened her mouth, but couldn't think what to say. She looked round the table, waiting for some support, waiting for someone else to speak up and tell Cyclops that his idea was crazy. Nobody said anything. She could tell that nobody was really happy with the plan, but they seemed to think that the situation warranted such extreme measures. Did it? Was it acceptable to put these young children in harm's way? No! Of course it wasn't! Nothing justified a risk like that!

"Now look," she spoke up. "I realise I'm new at this, and you've seen it all before, but if you're going to make me a full X-Woman then you have to listen to my opinion, right?"

"Of course," said Scott. "If you can give us a better alternative, we'll gladly listen."

"Well, what about Amnesia? Can't she help us?"

"Not as long as she can't remember what her powers are. Has she made any progress?"

"No, but…"

Storm broke in, "Alex, don't worry, it won't be as bad as you think. We're not sending the children into life-or-death struggles on their own. They'll each be paired up with somebody else. They're not going to be thrown into the middle of the action unprotected. It'll be a good learning experience for them."

"Yeah, I know, but…"

"Don't worry," said Scott. "They'll be fine."

- - -

Still deeply troubled by her misgivings, Gemini struggled to keep her concentration fully on the mission that afternoon. As it turned out, everything went off smoothly enough, and there was no further cause for concern. The crowds of anti-mutant protesters were once again out in force, but they were either fewer in number or more subdued in volume, as the violent outbursts of the day before did not seem to arise this time around. The four teenagers were once more assigned to guarding the rear entrance of the conference centre. This time Shock was leader of their group, and while she was busy checking the papers of a delivery van driver, the teenagers found themselves gathered together just outside the rear entrance.

"Am I the only one who feels this is wrong?" Gemini asked eventually.

"What?" said Atlas.

"Bringing the kids into this. I mean, they are just kids."

"Well," her boyfriend shrugged. "How old were we when Pyro first had us out there fighting for our lives?"

He had a point. Gemini did not like considering the idea that her father had made a mistake, that he had put them into battle earlier than he should have, without due care and consideration for their safety. She couldn't really remember how old she'd been when Pyro took her on her first "mission" with him. She had certainly been no older than ten or eleven. But – but this was different…here the X-Men weren't fighting for their lives. They were in a position of beginning to actually see their dreams come true. It wasn't a desperate life-or-death, backs-to-the-wall last stand. Or was it? Scott and Storm hadn't sounded too positive. They'd spoken of everything falling apart if any more of the speakers were murdered. Was the situation really that delicate? Could everything they'd built up over the last few years really fall away that quickly? What was the point of putting such enormous effort into building something up if it could collapse within a matter of days? Wasn't it _ever_ possible to get to a stage where certain disaster wasn't lurking around the corner?

She began to see the enormity of what she'd be letting herself in for if she did decide to accept Scott's offer and join the X-Men. It wasn't just a case of sitting around and fighting the occasional battle against bad guys. It was more about being eternally vigilant for anything that might be a threat, and setting out to deal with it. It was about seeing the opportunities for progress and taking them. It was about acting instead of just reacting. It was about following a vision, following a dream, and sticking with it through whatever might come to pass.

_Am I ready for that_? she thought, _is that really the way I want my life to go? Well, what's the alternative? Leaving the school and going out and getting a job? No, I can't do that. I have no interest in going into the outside world and just living an ordinary life. I want to do something more. I _**_have_**_ to do something more. I've got these powers and I have to use them for a reason. If there's a chance that I can make a difference in the world, I have to take it. There's got to be more to life than just working one day so I can eat the next._

Vertigo's smirking face distracted her thoughts.

"Did you see them?" he sneered.

"What are you talking about?" she said.

"Back in the meeting room," he said. "The X-Men. You saw it, didn't you? They were bricking themselves at the thought of not having Oculus or Crusader to win the fight for them."

"What are you saying?"

"They're cowards is what I'm saying. They're too used to having their favourite family of Czechs around to fix every problem that comes along."

"Don't be ridiculous," she snorted. "If you think Cyclops or Wolverine is a coward, go say it to their face."

He ignored her, "They're not even real mutants anyway."

"What are you talking about?" said Chronos.

"The Czechs. The Rosiçkys. Their powers aren't natural. They're manufactured mutants."

"Your point being?" Gemini demanded.

"My point being, it's no big surprise they aren't out here fighting for our kind. It's obvious where their real loyalties lie."

"Whatever. Vertigo, go dip your head in a lake sometime. The cold water might just jolt some sense into you. Don't forget we owe them our lives at least twice over."

"They're human filth," the ninja muttered under his breath.

She must have heard it, as she retorted, "Like I said, why don't you try saying these things to people's faces?"

The two of them glared at each other with barely disguised resentment, with neither Atlas or Chronos seeming willing to intrude. Fortunately the arrival of Fliss a few moments later brought the confrontation to a halt.

"Something the matter?" the blonde X-Woman asked.

"No," said the teenagers.

- - -

Later in the day, when they had moved on to the second phase of the day's mission, Gemini still found herself unable to decide where her feelings lay. She just couldn't see where she wanted her life to go at the moment. Once she had never had any difficulty in making that decision. As a child and a young teenager, she'd been completely dedicated to Dad's idea of removing the humans from the world, so the mutants could live in peace. Gemini had suffered terribly at the hands of humans, and a world without them seemed like the only safe bet for her future.

But now she had moved on from there, from that very monochromatic view of the world. She was wise enough now to know that the simple equation "mutant = good, human = bad" wasn't true in every case. However, although she'd moved on, she wasn't quite sure where'd she moved on _to_, or where she was going from there. From the sounds of things it seemed Vertigo still hadn't even moved on from the first stage, and she pitied him for that. She knew that if she was to accept the X-Men's offer, it had to be something she was 100% sure about before she made the commitment. It wasn't that she was afraid of commitment – she was used to putting her whole heart and soul into everything she cared about – she just couldn't see the destination she wanted her life to reach, and she didn't know whether joining the X-Men was on or off the road she wanted to take.

"Hey! Gemini! Isn't this cool?"

The duplicator looked across the hotel room to where the little girl had just poked her head through the doorway.

"Isn't this cool?" Byblos repeated.

"Sure, Bibi," Gemini said. "But it's not a vacation, remember. We've got a job to do."

"Yeah, I know. Do you wanna see the view from our window?"

"OK."

The seventeen year old stood and followed the child through the doorway into the room across the corridor. Inside, Acceleratus and Phobia were both kneeling on one of the beds beside the window. Accel heard the door open, and turned round, "Hey! Stay out of here!"

"It's only me!" Bibi said.

"Sorry, I thought it was the boys! Hi, Gemini!"

"Hey, Accel."

"Look, we can see the conference centre from here," said Phoebe, pointing to the window.

Gemini moved across the room to take a look. The view from the window was indeed spectacular. They were several floors up, and without a cloud in the sky they were able to see for miles. Across the river lay the enormous futuristic edifice of the conference centre, where she'd been that afternoon. The vehicles on the roads looked like ants, and the people on the sidewalk even smaller.

"You guys know what you're meant to do if anything bad happens, right?" she asked them uncertainly.

Accel rolled her eyes, "Yeah, we know. Mr Summers only told us about ten times."

"More like twenty," said Phoebe.

"More like a hundred," said Bibi, who then began imitating Scott's voice. "Now it's imperative – absolutely imperative! – that you let us know the second anything dangerous happens. I cannot stress how important that is. I mean, I just can't find the words – there aren't words in the English language to describe how important – "

"He didn't say it like _that_," Accel giggled.

"OK, but he used the word 'imperative' a lot. We got the message."

Phoebe nodded, "Anything bad happens, we hit one of the emergency communicators, and someone will come help us."

"Ha!" said Accel. "I'll beat up the bad guys long before Mr Summers or anyone else can get here!"

"Yeah, well, don't do anything stupid, OK?" Gemini said.

The ten year old gave her a withering stare that any teenager would have been proud of, "You're starting to sound like Mr Summers."

"Sorry, but – well, if he said that, then he's right. This could be pretty dangerous. We don't really know what bad guys we might be up against."

"Are we really in danger?" Phoebe asked, sounding worried.

"Nah, of course not," said Bibi. "They wouldn't have let us come if there was _real_ danger. Right, Gemini?"

Gemini hesitated, only for a second, but even that was long enough for a child of Byblos' wordmastery to detect. The little girl's confident smile faded and her eyes widened slightly.

"I'm sure the grown-ups won't let you get into any danger," Gemini said quickly.

"Well, I'm not scared," Accel declared. "I say bring it on!"

"That's what _I_ said," came a voice from the doorway.

It was Icarus. He and Turtle had casually entered the room, and Bibi suddenly regained her confidence, "Hey! We told you to stay out of here!"

Accel added her voice, "This is a _girls'_ room! Only intelligent people are allowed in here!"

"Why are you here, then?" Icarus retorted instantly.

"Shut up, Icky," said Bibi.

"Don't call me that!"

"Icky!"

"Shut up!"

Icarus stretched out his arms, leapt from the floor, and swooped across the room towards her. There was a blur and Accel got in his way, grabbing his shoulders and tackling him to the floor. Bibi giggled in delight. Phoebe and Turtle looked at each other; he raised his eyebrows and she shook her head despairingly.

Gemini looked on in dismay. The kids' childish arguments and fights were certainly nothing new, but at this moment they only emphasised one thing: these were children. They weren't ready to be put into the line of danger, to defend themselves from harm, and to try and protect the lives of others. They were only children, doing what children did, messing about and having fun…and _learning_ how to become adults. She'd already been feeling uncertain about their inclusion in the mission, and now she was feeling even worse. Accel and Icarus' play-fight was starting to get rough, and soon somebody would be crying. She was about to step in and pull them apart, when another voice from the door forestalled her:

"Hey, everyone!"

"Cassie!" Phoebe cried.

She ran across the room towards the teenager standing in the doorway, but a flash overtook her and Accel got there first, engulfing Cassandra in a tight hug, almost knocking her over. Cassandra put one arm round Accel, and the other round Phoebe.

"Wow, I can't believe how much you guys have grown!" she exclaimed.

"That's 'cos you've been away too long!" Accel said accusingly.

"I know, honey, I'm sorry, but I've had a lot of things to do getting ready for the wedding."

"I can't believe you're getting married!" Phoebe smiled.

"Who's getting married?" said Cassandra's fiancé, appearing at her side.

"_You_ are, silly!" Bibi shouted, giving the gloves on his hands a playful tug.

"Hi, Skippy," the Londoner greeted the little Australian girl.

"Hey, Pommy!" she retorted.

"Hey, Cassie. Hey, Helios," Gemini greeted them. "I've missed you too, you know!"

Cassandra managed to disentangle herself from the children so she could hug Gemini.

"Yeah, I have been away a long time," she admitted. "And like I said, I am really sorry, but I simply have _so_ much to do. Like tidying up the pig-sty that our flat was like before I moved in!"

"Hey, it wasn't _that_ bad," Helios said.

"'Wasn't that bad'?" she repeated. "Would anybody like to know what I found in Helios' freezer-box the first night I stayed over? A shoe. Yes, a _shoe_."

"I don't know how that got there!" he protested.

"I'm sure you don't," she retorted. "Like I'm sure you don't know how my favourite romantic comedy DVD ended up in the laundry basket! I suppose I should be grateful that you're actually _using_ the laundry basket now…"

Gemini smiled, "You two are arguing like a married couple already. Wow, I keep forgetting it's not long till the wedding!"

"I know," said Helios. "Is Vertigo around? He and I need to organise some things for the stag party…"

He disappeared back through the doorway. Bibi had grabbed hold of Cassie's hand, and asked her, "Hey, can I be a bridesmaid?"

"Sure, honey," Cassie smiled. "In fact, I was gonna ask all four of you if you'd be my bridesmaids. As long as you don't mind wearing pink."

Accel, Phoebe and Byblos squealed in delight and began clustering around Cassandra, all asking questions at once, begging every last detail of what they were going to get to wear.

"You'll be the chief bridesmaid," Cassandra said to Gemini.

"Cool," the duplicator smiled.

Gemini's spirits had lifted again. Cassandra had always been her closest friend, and having her back with them was already making her feel better. She allowed herself to relax a little, and started to feel as if maybe things were going to be OK after all.

- - -

The chess piece moved slowly across the board, its underside sliding gracefully over the smooth plastic, crossing black and white squares alternately, until arriving at its destination.

"Check."

The white bishop moved to block the attack on its sovereign.

"You've heard the latest report?"

"Yep."

The black queen landed on the square occupied by the white rook. The rook joined the growing number of white pieces beside the board.

"What do you think their next move will be?" asked the kid playing as white.

His opponent looked at the chess board for a few seconds, then back up, "Are you trying to distract me from the game?"

The young man in the white bodysuit raised his hands in a gesture of innocence, "Me?"

Adjusting his glasses, the boy playing as black returned his gaze to the game. A black rook moved to capture the white queen, who was deposited with the rest of her army at the side of the board.

"Humans can play this game, you know," he said.

"Really?" said the white-clad boy.

"Yeah. Quite surprising, isn't it? You wouldn't think their brains could handle it."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I'm still thinking. It's your move."

Glancing half-heartedly at the board, the kid in the white body suit moved one of his white pieces more or less at random. His opponent responded, and the black queen knocked aside the second-last pawn defending the white king.

"They know someone is murdering their speakers," the kid playing as black said. "They don't know who, but they do know it's only a matter of time until another one is targeted. They can't allow it to happen. They've invested too much into their precious conference to allow it to fail. They'll focus everything they have on protecting their speakers."

"Leaving their school undefended?"

"Exactly. We kill another speaker, and simultaneously move against their school. They won't be able to deal with two threats at once. And while they're still reeling from that, we'll hit them with a third."

"The explosives?" the kid in white asked.

"Right. It's taken them years to try and build up trust between themselves and the humans. We'll drive in a wedge and rip it apart within the space of a day. While they rush around trying to fix the unfixable, we'll advance the next stage of our plans at the reactor. If they ever find out what's going on – which I doubt – they'll be in no position to do anything about it. The world they'll be trying to save will have changed forever."

"I like the sound of that."

The black queen smacked into the last white pawn, sending the chess piece skittering off the edge of the table and on to the floor.

"Checkmate."

"Well, I never saw that coming," said the kid in white sarcastically. "What's that, eight hundred games undefeated?"

"Eight hundred and twelve."

"I can't believe you still actually keep score. Nerd," the white-clad boy said disparagingly, leaning back in his chair and sighing with boredom.

The communicator at his ear buzzed. He hit it and said, "Yeah?"

"_Masquerade_?"

"Yeah, Boss?"

"_Where's Mastermind_?"

"Here, with me."

"_I want you both in the meeting room._"

"On our way."

Masquerade looked up and spoke to the other, "That was the Boss. We've to – "

"I heard."

Leaving the chess set as it was, the two young men stood, and headed for the door. On the way, the kid in white frowned for a second, "What happens when they rush to defend their school against our attack? Have you thought about that?"

"Of course," said Mastermind, sounding mildly offended. "We have someone in their midst, remember? They'll take care of everything."

- - -

The door to Scott Summers' office glided open easily and silently. Pyro allowed himself a faint glimmer of satisfaction. It had been two decades since he'd learned the finer aspects of picking a lock, and he'd had little practice in the last few years, but the skill hadn't entirely deserted him. Instinctively he checked that the coast was clear before slipping inside the room and closing the door behind him. He needn't have worried. None of the X-Men were here. In fact the only other people in the school at this moment were Gemini's sister and little niece, and the new kid, the blonde girl.

Actually, he couldn't believe his luck, that an opportunity like this had come along. He'd known for a long time that what he needed would be found in Cyclops' private files, and nowhere else. The only question had been how to get at them without incurring any suspicion. With the X-Men gone, this was the perfect time. He knew he might never get another opportunity as good as this, and he hadn't hesitated.

He tried not to touch anything inside the room. Scott was probably anal-minded and meticulous enough that he would notice if even a speck of dust was out of place. Pyro glanced around the office. Boy. Scott really _was_ anal. Back when John had been a student here, he'd been called to this office dozens of times to get yelled at for one reason or another. Almost _nothing_ had changed in this room since then. He'd have been willing to bet that the furniture and the ornaments were kept at exactly the right position and angle. Pyro wasn't complaining, though. It only made his job easier. He didn't even have to search for what he was looking for. He knew exactly where it would be.

Five minutes later he had it in his hand, and was ready to leave. Cynical as he was, Pyro still couldn't believe just how smoothly this had all gone off. Fate wasn't usually this kind to him. He'd been half-expecting an alarm to go off, or one of the X-Men to suddenly pop out of the woodwork, or to be unable to find what he'd come for. Life had kicked him in the teeth enough times in the past, and he wouldn't have been at all surprised if things had suddenly gone wrong for no reason at all.

He wasn't at all surprised when he opened the door to find the blonde girl standing right outside.

"Hi," she said. "I'm looking for Mr Summers. Is this his office?"

Although he technically wasn't surprised, Pyro still had to make an effort to keep his face bland and expressionless.

"Scott's not here right now," he said. "Can I help?"

"Well, he asked me to let him know if I remembered anything else important," said Amnesia. "And I think I have."

"You can tell him when he gets back; I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"OK."

She was about to turn and walk away, when her eyes narrowed slightly and she gave Pyro a strange look, "Have – have we met before?"

"I don't think so."

"Oh. It's strange, I – I just felt something. Like I remembered something."

"About me?"

"Yeah. Your voice seems familiar. Like I've heard it before, a long, long time ago."

"I think you're probably mistaking me for somebody else."

"I'm not so sure. Can I, um, can I talk to you again later? I want to see if I remember anything else."

Pyro didn't really want to spend time talking to the girl, but if he kept her happy then hopefully she wouldn't mention to the X-Men that he had been in Scott's office.

"Sure," he said.

She smiled, and turned to head back to the girls' dormitory. Pyro watched her go, and when she was out of sight, he finally let go of the breath he hadn't realised he was holding. In his hands he was still holding what he'd taken from Scott's room. The girl hadn't looked at it or shown any interest in it, and presumably had no idea that Pyro had no right to be taking things from Scott's office. Heck, she probably thought he was just another of the teachers. Still, there was always the possibility that Scott might find out, which meant Pyro had to act fast. He hurried to his own room.


	13. Chapter 13

Gemini had finally forced herself to stop worrying about the children, and to focus on her own part in the mission. Whoever had murdered the two dead conference speakers was obviously very good at killing, and stopping them would take her full concentration. Could it be a mutant who was responsible? Gemini knew only too well that there were mutants dedicated to the destruction of peace. She'd been one herself once. Or was it a human? There was nothing to stop a human being an effective assassin, albeit with many years of experience and training. Did it even make a difference which it was? An enemy was an enemy, regardless of what they were capable of doing. Someone who was doing wrong had to be stopped, regardless of how powerful they were. Just trying to do the right thing was more important than actually succeeding. Wasn't that right? Wasn't that what she'd read in the Bible?

Her mind was wandering. She had to stay focussed. The rest of her group had moved on without her, and she hurried to catch up. All of the conference speakers were being put up in a luxury hotel paid for by the UN, which made it easier to protect them as a whole. Scott had assigned them to patrol the area of the hotel where he considered an attack to be most likely.

"Hey, kid – are you with us or what?" asked Logan as she rejoined the group.

"Sorry, I was just – thinking."

"Glad we've got your attention," he said dryly.

Cassie smiled at her friend. Accel was leaning against the wall, sighing with boredom every few minutes. When she was told that she'd be helping out on a mission, she'd been overjoyed and hadn't stopped chattering about it to anyone who would listen. Now that it was actually happening, she was beginning to realise that it wasn't going to be action and excitement from start to finish.

"When's something going to _happen_?" she eventually asked impatiently.

Logan glanced over at her, then away again. Children weren't his strong point, and he wasn't pleased at the idea of having to "baby-sit" a ten year old. Privately he wasn't entirely convinced by Gemini or Cassandra either – they were, after all, just seventeen year old girls – but at least he had seen them fight and he knew they could be left to take care of themselves when it came to the violent stuff.

Cassandra had answered the child's question, "We hope it won't, honey. Remember, we're not looking for a fight. We're here to keep these people safe."

"But this is _boring_!"

"It's still important. We're protecting people who want peace between us and the humans."

"I _know_ – Mr Summers told me. Only he used ten times as many words."

Logan suppressed a chuckle. It wasn't just him who found Scott a pain in the ass.

"Who are we fighting against, though?" Accel continued. "Mr Summers wouldn't tell us that."

"Well, we don't really know," said Gemini.

"Are they mutants?"

"We don't know."

"I guess they'd have to be. Like, sub-creatures would be too stupid to – humans! I mean humans!"

Her cheeks went red and she looked away from them. She'd been yelled at several times by the teachers for referring to humans as "sub-creatures". It wasn't her fault – that was just the way they used to talk when they were on the island. But adults never listened, they just shouted.

Logan was half-heartedly considering telling her off, and was just about to decide that he didn't really care, when he suddenly sensed that something was wrong. He sniffed the air. The hairs on his arms were beginning to rise. His animal senses were screaming that something was amiss.

Gemini noticed, "Logan? What is it?"

"Quiet!"

What the hell was it? The corridor was empty, apart from them. All the windows had been securely barred. There was no way that anyone could be –

Then it hit him. He stared up at the ceiling above his head. A tiny ventilation grille, barely a foot square, was directly over him. That was where it was coming from. The smell, the sound, that only his animal instincts had been able to detect.

"There's someone in the vents!" he hissed.

The girls immediately ran to his side.

"How is that possible?" Gemini hissed back. "I thought Scott said we checked the vents! And they were too narrow for even a kid to get through!"

"It must be a mutant," said Logan. "Damn it, there's a ventilation grille in every single room we've got a speaker in! He could be headed for any one of them!"

"What do we do?" Accel gasped. "How do we – ?"

"If you all shut up, I might be able to listen!" he growled.

They shut up. He strained his ears, trying to pick up the faint sound he'd heard earlier. His eyes suddenly widened and he pointed, "That room!"

Accel got there first, but Logan pulled her out of the way, "Get out of the way, kid! Stay behind me!"

She was about to argue, but suddenly there came a terrified scream from behind the door.

"Damn it! Sometimes I hate being right!" Logan snapped.

He kicked at the door, but it had been reinforced against potential intruders and refused to budge. His claws snapped into action and one swipe made short work of the door. Shouldering aside the remains, he charged into the room. His heightened senses and hunting instincts took in the scene in an instant. On the bed lay one of the conference speakers, a small grey-haired man. On top of him, in the process of throttling him to death, was a figure dressed entire in tight black leather.

"You picked the wrong people to screw with," Logan snarled, advancing with his claws out.

The assassin's head suddenly snapped round to face him. He could see now it was a woman. Beneath the black cat-suit, only her eyes were visible. Her reactions were instantaneous, letting go of the old man, who collapsed on to the bed, gasping desperately for air. In the same second, the woman back-flipped into the air from a kneeling position, landing perfectly on two feet. Gemini moved forward to help Wolverine, but Logan pointed at the speaker, "Watch him! I got this one! Cassandra, go get Scott and the others!"

That was the last chance he had to issue any orders, as the woman in the cat-suit suddenly launched herself across the room at him, her hands reaching out to grip his throat. He'd seen it coming and was already moving to counter-attack, dropping on to his knees and rolling underneath her, then thrusting both sets of claws up into her stomach. She screamed in agony and kicked out at his face, managing to pull herself free from the claws and staggering away.

Even as she did this, Logan instantly knew something was wrong. It took him a second to realise what it was. His claws had gone right into her, but there was no blood on them. As she regained her balance and came towards him again, he saw there were no wounds on her body either. This wasn't good…

Her fist shot out with impossible speed and cracked him on the jaw, sending him reeling backwards. Before he could do anything, he saw two identical figures running towards her. The Gemini twins acted in perfect concord as they attacked the woman, one holding her attention while the other struck from behind. She was fast though, unbelievably fast, and with a spinning kick she sent one twin slamming against the wall.

"Kid, I said cover the speaker! This one's mine!" Logan yelled.

Gemini shot him an angry glare, but backed off and allowed him to charge the woman. She seemed off balance; her head was probably still spinning from having to keep track of the twins. Logan deflected her clumsy punch with one arm, then drove his forehead into her chin with a satisfying metallic _clunk_. It would have knocked a normal person senseless, but she was obviously trained to handle pain and after stumbling backwards a few steps she regained her poise.

"Mr Logan!" Accel cried from the doorway. "Let me help!"

"Shut up, kid! Stay there!"

The female assassin sprang towards him again, this time turning a complicated mid-air somersault that allowed her to slam both feet into his face. Logan was knocked to the ground as she landed on her hands and flipped back upright. He jumped back to his feet and held his claws out aggressively.

"OK, I am now officially pissed off," he spat. "You've asked for this."

"You have no idea who you're dealing with," she hissed in return, her voice muffled through the air-filter of her cat-suit. "You should give up now while you're still breathing."

"I've faced better than you and not even broken sweat," he taunted.

She laughed harshly, "It's that kind of over-confidence that makes you people so pathetically easy."

It was only momentary, but her laughter had dropped her concentration for a second and Logan made a lightning charge in her direction, thrusting both sets of claws directly into her heart.

"Try that for pathetically easy," he snarled.

Screaming in agony, she gasped, "Don't mind if I do."

In the next instant she was holding a tiny pistol in her left hand, aiming it at his head from point-blank range. His instinct was to block with his claws, but he couldn't eject them from her body fast enough, and two bullets smacked into his temple. Logan slumped backwards lifeless, his claws retracting into his knuckles and his body hitting the floor.

"_Logan_?!" Gemini shrieked.

Was he dead? Could he heal from that? She knew he'd been shot before, but what about in the head? So focussed was she on the fallen Wolverine, that she hadn't even noticed the woman. Gemini had assumed that Logan had stabbed the woman fatally, and within seconds she would join him in lying unmoving on the floor.

"Like I said, pathetically easy," the woman sneered.

Gemini looked up in shock. The assassin wasn't on the floor dead, or even writhing in pain. There was no visible sign that she'd been stabbed at all. In fact, she was laughing as she stepped easily over Logan's body. The conference speaker was still cowering in terror on his bed, and Gemini instinctively moved both of herself in front of him.

"Get out of the way, little girl," the assassin mocked her. "You don't need to die like your boss there."

Gemini stood her ground defiantly. The woman was still holding the gun, and Gemini was frantically trying to calculate if she had enough time to attack before the woman could fire a shot. Her duality usually gave her the advantage of surprise when her enemies were first faced with it, but that had been wasted now. She knew she had hesitated too long. She should have acted. It was too late now.

"OK, maybe you do," the woman sighed.

Raising her gun, she fired at the nearest of the two twins. At the same second, the other twin was running towards the speaker, grabbing him and forcing him on to the ground behind the bed, hoping it was solid enough to provide some cover. The bullet smacked into the chest of the decoy twin, killing her instantly. Gemini screamed as she shared her double's pain, and collapsed on to her hands and knees, on the verge of blacking out.

"No…" she gasped weakly as she saw the killer marching over towards her.

"So weak," the killer sneered again.

Then another voice screamed, "No!"

Before she knew what she was doing, Accel found herself charging towards the assassin. In a fraction of a second, the girl was already moving at speed, ploughing into the woman, her enormous momentum carrying the two of them across the room. In their path lay the room's only window, reinforced against potential invaders, but no match for the force behind Accel's charge. The glass shattered, and then there was nothing underneath them. Accel suddenly screamed in terror as she realised she was plummeting several floors to the ground below.

In the next second, three different things happened. Logan's healing power forced the bullet out of his forehead, and his eyes snapped open. Gemini overcame the agonising pain to struggle to her feet. A group led by Scott suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"What's going on?" Cyclops demanded.

"Accel!" Gemini screamed. "She's gone out the window!"

"_What_?"

"Icarus! _Icarus_!"

"Yeah?" came the kid's voice.

Gemini thanked God that the young boy was among the group standing in the doorway. She grabbed hold of him and frantically pointed toward the window, "Go! Accel's falling!"

"Go!" Scott echoed.

The boy whooped with excitement and ran towards the window, leaping through the hole in the glass that had already been made. His arms shot out and came together in a perfect dive, increasing his downward velocity. Below him he could see two figures helplessly flailing down towards the ground. The smaller had to be Accel. Using his power, Icarus changed course slightly to head straight for the girl.

The next thing Accel knew, a pair of arms suddenly grabbed her around the waist, and her plummet towards the ground was now developing into a smooth and graceful descent. Instinctively she grabbed at the person holding her.

"Boy, you're heavy," Icarus grunted.

"I am not!"

Finally getting their descent fully under control, Icarus brought the two of them to rest gently on the ground.

"Thanks," she gasped, as her brain at last caught up with what had just happened.

"What happened?"

"Tell you later; where is she?"

The woman's body was lying on the ground a few yards away. Accel hurried over to get a closer look at their enemy. She'd seen dead bodies before, so she wasn't completely unprepared for the sight. Despite that, the girl still found her stomach churning with nausea as she laid eyes upon the body in the middle of the car park. The woman had landed on her back, her neck twisted to one side. Her left arm was bent at an angle it probably wasn't meant to reach.

"_Gross_," Icarus said.

Accel was about to agree with him, when something caught her eye. At first she thought it was her imagination when she saw the woman's arm moving, bending back to the correct angle. But then her legs started to move as well, and the woman in the black cat-suit got to her feet. Icarus backed away in shock, but Accel stood her ground.

"Freeze!"

Both Accel and the woman turned in surprise to see a group of men with guns pointed directly at them.

"Kid, step away!" a voice called. "It's all right, men, the little girl's with the UN team!"

Accel obeyed, stepping out of the line of fire. The woman turned, and ran.

"Fire!"

Bullets pinged through the air in the direction of the fleeing woman, but her escape was unchecked.

"Call for back-up! Get a chopper in the air!"

Accel clenched her fists. This was no good! The bad guy was getting away! None of the men were chasing her! _Fine, I'll do it myself_! From a standing start, the child began accelerating after the woman. It took less than three seconds for her to catch up. The woman must have heard her footsteps, as she turned and used a word that Accel had only ever heard Vertigo use before, then snapped, "Don't you know when to quit?"

The tiny pistol reappeared in her hand, and she aimed directly at the onrushing child, squeezing the trigger. Accel dived to one side and rolled over, the bullet avoiding her by inches. This was it! This was what she'd been waiting for! The chance to use her powers for real instead of just endless training sessions at school!

They'd reached the exit to the hotel car park, where a small security hut had been set up for the duration of the conference. Two men were crouched beside it, both armed with pistols.

"Freeze! Get down on the ground!" one of them yelled.

Accel panicked for a second, but they weren't talking to her. The woman aimed her own gun at one of the men, forcing him to dive headlong to avoid being shot. The other man fired in return, but she dodged his bullet easily and wrapped one arm around his neck, snapping it cleanly. Before the second man could get up again, she slammed her heel into the small of his back, pinning him to the ground, and shot him in the back of the head.

Terrified by how easily the woman had just killed two men, Accel hesitated. But not for long. This was her job. She was here to stop the bad guys from killing people. She started running after the woman again. A black van suddenly pulled up at the entrance to the car park, the doors at the back being flung open. Without stopping, the woman leapt inside, and the van began to speed away. Accel didn't stop, putting her head down and pushing herself to the limit. The van was accelerating away into the distance, but she was already closing the gap. It was midnight and there was very little traffic, but the few cars that were around were screeching to a halt at the sight of the ten year old girl catching up on the van.

Her muscles pumping, her blood feeling like electricity, Accel felt more alive than she had ever done in her life before. Up ahead, the van must have reached its top speed because it had stopped accelerating. If Accel had a top speed she didn't know what it was, and she was now only yards away from the vehicle. One of the back doors was still hanging open, and she could see two or three people inside, their eyes gaping at her with astonishment. The female assassin was one of them, and she pointed her gun at Accel. Nothing happened. It must have been empty. One of the figures beside her reached behind him and grabbed for something else. By now Accel was a couple of feet away and she made a grab for the van door, missing it by inches.

The man in the back of the van, wearing a white body suit and smirking at her, had picked up a machine gun. Accel suddenly realised she was about to die. She couldn't dodge that many bullets! She veered away from her pursuit of the van, desperately trying to get out of his line of fire. Running on to the other side of the road, she narrowly avoided a car coming the other way, its horn blaring furiously at her. She heard the roar of the machine gun, heard bullets hitting the road behind her, and kept running. She was exhausted now. She'd never tried to catch up with a vehicle before, and hadn't realised how quickly it would sap her stamina. Another car swerved to avoid her as she had to come to a halt, exhausted and breathing heavily. The van disappeared into the distance as she dropped to her hands and knees, panting and dizzy, on the verge of blacking out. She was still in the middle of the road, and an onrushing car had to swerve out of the way to avoid her, its horn blaring loudly. In desperation she tried to summon the strength to crawl to the side of the road, but couldn't do it. Accel felt herself slipping away, and then she lost consciousness.


	14. Chapter 14

When she awoke, she was no longer lying on the road, but on a soft bed. For a few moments her brain wasn't working and she had absolutely no memory of what had happened. Her leg muscles ached, but she wasn't sure why.

"Hey, honey," came a voice from beside her. "Welcome back to the waking world. Here, sit up a little and drink this."

Accel looked over. It was Cassie, handing the little girl a cup.

"Careful, it's hot."

She sipped at the cup. It was warm milk. Her mind was beginning to wake up a bit. She started to remember what had happened. Then it came back to her in full. Man. No wonder her legs were aching. Her hand shook a little and she nearly spilled her milk, as she remembered the terror of almost being shot.

"She's awake!" Cassie called to somebody else.

That somebody else turned out to be Mr Summers, striding angrily across the room.

"Acceleratus!" he yelled.

The girl braced herself. She knew she was in trouble when the teachers used the closest thing she had to a full name. Mr Summers stopped at the side of the bed and demanded furiously, "What the he – what on earth do you think you're playing at?"

"What?" she said defensively, holding her cup tightly with both hands.

"Do you have some sort of death wish? First you go diving out of a window who knows how many floors off the ground, _then_ you start running about on an open road! What kind of _crazy_ _behaviour_ do you call that?"

Accel wasn't afraid of talking back to adults, but not usually when they were angry, and _definitely_ not when it was Mr Summers. But this time it was different. She'd almost died! She'd almost died and he didn't even care!

"I almost died!" she exploded. "I was doing my job! I was fighting the bad guys! Where were _you_? Huh? Where were you? Up here sitting on your – "

"That is _it_!" he roared. "I am not taking that kind of insolence from you, young lady! Consider yourself lucky to be alive and even luckier if you escape without serious punishment!"

"Hey, give her a break," Cassandra snapped at him. "She's been through a lot today, you know!"

Mr Summers looked at the older girl sharply for a second, then stormed off. A moment later Chris appeared where he had been standing. He leaned over and tapped his knuckles gently against the top of Accel's head.

"What are you _doing_?" the child demanded, still angry.

"Oh, just checking to see if it's hollow, or if there really is a brain in there."

"_Chris_!"

"Oh, come on, Accel – you're not allowed to go running off without backup! None of us is allowed to do that!"

"But she would have got away!"

"Who?"

"Who do you think? The bad guy – the woman in black, the one we were fighting!"

He looked at her strangely, "Accel, she died. She fell out of the window with you, remember?"

"No! She got up again and I went after her!"

"She _what_?"

"Didn't Icarus tell you? He saw it too!"

"He was babbling about something, but we thought he was just over-excited! Are you saying this woman fell all that distance on to the ground, and then got up again?"

"Yes!" Accel said impatiently. "Then a van picked her up! I tried to chase it, but it got away. _That's_ why I was stuck in the middle of the road! I wasn't just fooling around!"

"I'll be right back," he said, and hurried to the door.

He was true to his word, returning within seconds, this time with Mr Summers and Miss Munroe. Accel hid her face in anticipation of another yelling.

"I think Accel should rest just now," Cassie said to them.

"This'll only take a minute," Miss Munroe said softly. "Honey, tell us what happened, after you fell out of the window."

So Accel told them how Icarus had grabbed hold of her to save her from falling, and how they'd touched down safely on the ground. Then she told them how she'd seen the woman lying on the floor, then getting up, killing some men, and running off. And how Accel had gone after her, but had run out of energy before she could catch up with the van.

"Are you _serious_?" Mr Summers demanded. "After falling that distance, she just _got up_?"

She was still resentful about the way he'd spoken to her, and still naturally frightened of getting yelled at. But now there was something else as well. She could sense it in his voice somehow. Was Mr Summers frightened too? Starting to feel even more uneasy, the little girl just nodded, "Uh huh."

- - -

Melody suddenly jolted awake. Her briefcase full of notes had slid off her knee and hit the floor with a crash, waking her. She shook her head, and tried to keep her concentration on what she was doing. She had in front of her the transcripts of the presentations and debates from the conference so far. It was a lot of material, and she was only half way through. She was supposed to have finished it half an hour ago. In the absence of their missing speaker, she and her colleagues had had to do the best they could to present the late woman's case between them. Melody's job was to go through everything that had been said so far and make sure they had covered all the angles.

However, it wasn't going well, for a number of reasons. They were all still in shock at the news of their colleague's murder, and the murder of one of the speakers on the opposing side. It couldn't be coincidence – could it? Two deaths so close together, so closely linked to the conference. But it made no sense. A lot of people felt very strongly about this conference, and she could understand why somebody might try to silence an important voice on one side of the debate. But why would anyone try to silence both sides? There really wasn't any middle ground between the two positions – at least, not that she could see.

Being a young widowed mother didn't make things easy either. Little Athena was always unsettled at first when she came to a new place, and getting her to sleep was proving very difficult at the moment. Melody had spent much of the previous night awake, trying to lull her small daughter to sleep. Though stressed out and exhausted to the point of desperation, she had comforted herself with the thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse. That was before she had heard the news of the two murders. Now it felt like she was struggling to keep herself from losing it.

It was at times like this she really missed her husband. He had always been there, through everything, whenever she needed a comforting presence or when things were getting too much for her. He would do whatever he could to take his share of her burden, or help her find a way to lessen it. But now that he was gone…

She still didn't really know who had been responsible for his death. He'd been one of the millions of victims of the deadly Plague virus that had spread across the Americas three years ago. Nobody knew for sure who had started the Plague. Rumours were that it had been mutants trying to wipe out the human population, but as the virus had quickly begun to attack the mutants as well, Melody considered that unlikely. Just as it had seemed that the Plague would spread unstoppably into Europe, Africa and Asia, a cure had been discovered and mass-distributed in time to eradicate the virus. At least she knew who to thank for the cure. The X-Men, her younger sister's mentors, determined as they were to live in peace with humankind, had put all of their efforts into finding a way to cure the Plague. Melody and baby Athena had both been saved from certain death. Her husband had not been so lucky.

She jolted upright once more. She'd been drifting off to sleep again. It was no good. She just couldn't concentrate. Sighing and putting her notes on the table in front of her, Melody stood and went to check on Athena. Before she reached the stairs however, she decided to go and find something to eat first. She didn't care what, just something to keep her awake. Back in her student days, before getting married, she'd been used to eating pretty much whatever was at hand. But when she had married and quickly become pregnant, she'd had no choice but to start eating more sensibly.

It was the abrupt change of mind that saved her life. Had she continued on into the hallway and towards the stairs, she would have been directly in the path of the explosion that suddenly ripped through the front entrance of the school, throwing brickwork and shards of glass in all directions. The shockwave rocked the building, throwing Melody to the ground. It took a second or two for the shock to wear off and her mind to work out what had happened. Then she was on her feet and desperately looking around for some explanation of what was going on. Only one thing was in her mind: find Athena. She ran for the stairs.

Out of the smoke and chaos of the entrance hall she suddenly found herself face to face with four unfamiliar figures. In an instant she took in what few details she could: the first was short; the second hunchbacked; the third wore dark glasses; and the fourth was _definitely_ not human. Their demeanour was not friendly. Terrified, Melody ran for the stairs as fast as she could. She had to find her daughter.

"Get her!" one of them yelled.

The fourth figure raised both arms, there was a _phut_, and suddenly Melody found herself pinned to the wall. She screamed in agony and tried desperately to pull free, but a spike over a foot long had impaled her right hand, and she was stuck fast. Blood was pouring from her palm and tears from her eyes.

One of the figures laughed, "You missed."

"No, I didn't, I was aiming for the hand. It's more fun when they know what's coming."

"_HELP_!!" Melody screamed.

"Get the other hand!"

"Wait a minute, I'm not ready."

With a superhuman effort, Melody pulled with her left hand at the spike that had pierced her right. Ignoring the pain, blinking away the streaming tears, driven on by her overpowering maternal instinct to go to her daughter, she felt it come loose, and then with another tug it was out.

_Phut_.

In desperation she threw herself headlong to the ground, and heard the sound of another spike hitting the wall where she had just been standing.

"You missed _that_ time!"

"You kill it, then!"

"Fine!"

The small figure was coming towards her now, blinking spasmodically, both fists clenched. Although she was on the point of passing out through pain and loss of blood, Melody somehow managed to drag herself to her feet, and ran up the stairs with every last measure of strength in her body. She had to get to Athena.

"Mommy?" she heard a voice cry.

Melody reached the top of the stairs to find little Athena running towards her, still clutching her favourite teddy-bear. The child had obviously been woken by the explosion. Frightened, Athena stretched both arms out towards her mother, seeking a reassuring cuddle. Still running, Melody scooped up her daughter with her good hand, and cast a terrified glance behind her.

The small man had just reached the top of the stairs. He cracked his knuckles with a horrible metallic _krak_, and drew back his fist.

"Please leave us alone!" the young mother begged, backing away as fast as she could.

The other three figures appeared behind him.

"Did you hear something?" one of them said.

"Nope."

"Funny. Could have sworn I heard the human say something. But of course humans can't talk. They're just animals."

"Please, don't hurt us!" Melody cried. "We haven't done anything!"

"There it is again. I must get my ears checked."

The man with dark glasses snapped impatiently, "Quit fooling round and kill it."

Melody gave up any hope of pleading for mercy, and turned to flee. Footsteps told her the attackers were right on her heels. With her mangled right hand and being weighed down by carrying her child, she wouldn't be able to out-run them for more than a few seconds.

Suddenly a figure appeared at the other end of the corridor.

"Pyro!!" she gasped in relief. "Please! Please help us!"

In a flash his cigarette lighter appeared in his hand. Melody cast a frantic glance over her shoulder. The four pursuing figures had stopped. She did not, continuing to run towards Gemini's foster father. But the momentary glance came at a price, as she lost her footing and fell to the ground. Athena shrieked in terror as she was spilled on to the floor. Melody tried to break her fall with her damaged hand, but this only delivered a jolt of excruciating pain that pushed her to the brink of blacking out.

"Pyro…long time no see," she heard the small man with the metallic knuckles saying.

Pyro made no response. Melody grabbed Athena and held her close.

"How've you been, Boss?" asked the hunchback.

_Boss_? Melody turned to look at Pyro in confusion. She was just in time to see the burst of flame shoot out from the cigarette lighter, before Pyro hurled it down the corridor towards her. The young mother screamed as she and her daughter were engulfed in flames.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: I do realise it's been over 2 years since I last updated this fic, but I'm still pretty excited about its potential so I'm going to try and get it finished.**

**Anyway, on with the action:**

"_Help? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?_"

The panic evident in the young female voice made Rogue's heart suddenly jump. Something was wrong. She didn't recognise the voice. Grabbing her communicator, Rogue quickly responded, "Hello? I read you! Who is that?"

"_It's me – um – I don't know what my name is – I'm the one people are calling Amnesia! Please, you need to help me !"_

"OK! Are you still at the school? What's wrong?"

"_I dunno! Something happened – might be still happening! There was some sort of explosion! Part of the school is on fire! I don't know what to do! Where are you?"_

"An explosion? OK, don't worry – we'll be right there!"

She put down her communicator and ran to find Scott and Storm. A quarter of an hour later Scott, Logan and Storm were in the jet, heading for the school at full speed. None of them knew what to expect when they arrived there. All they knew was that things were taking far too many unexpected turns for their liking. The incident with the female assassin – who had without doubt to be a mutant – had unsettled everyone. Somehow, in some way, they could sense the rules of the game had suddenly, irreversibly changed. Or perhaps even the game itself had changed.

On the way Storm attempted to re-establish contact with the school, but with no response. The anticipation, the terror of not knowing, was weighing heavily on all of them. They had expected attack. They had expected enemies to try and oppose them. But they'd expected the attacks to be directed at the conference speakers, not at their own school. Something didn't add up. Something didn't make sense. It was as if they'd suddenly been dealt a handful of jokers.

The moment they arrived at the school they could instantly see something was wrong. The front entrance was lying in ruins and black coils of smoke were protruding from shattered windows on the upper floor west wing.

"What the hell…" Logan breathed.

"Still can't make contact," said Storm, removing the communicator headset from her ears.

"I'll set down just over here," Scott told them.

Logan was the first out of the jet, approaching the school at a run. Something was badly wrong; he didn't need his animal senses to tell him that. His claws out, his ears twitching for the slightest hint of danger, he plunged through the wrecked front door. Scott and Storm were close behind him, and the three of them paused inside the ruined hallway.

"Damn..." Logan growled.

"Hello?" Storm called. "Anyone here?"

There was no response. Logan headed further into the building.

"Logan, wait – " Scott began.

"Find out what went on here," the older man snapped brusquely. "I'll look for survivors."

"All right," said Storm. "Pyro should be here, and Amnesia – she's the one who called us. And Melody and her little girl should be here too!"

Logan nodded, "If they're here, I'll find them."

He ran for the stairs. Scott and Storm headed straight for the elevator and down to the underground level. As soon as they emerged from the lift –

"Oh, I'm so glad you're here!" Amnesia cried, running towards them. "I don't know what's happening! I was so scared!"

"Hey, it's all right," Storm tried to calm her. "Don't worry, you're gonna be fine. What happened?"

Scott left her to talk to the girl as he ran to the security centre.

"I don't know!" Amnesia wailed. "All I heard was this really loud explosion, and I headed straight down here! I figured it'd be safer! I don't know what happened after that!"

"All right, all right, try and relax. We're here now. Everything's gonna be OK. Just sit down for a bit and relax, OK?"

Amnesia nodded, and sank down to her knees, her body trembling and breathing hard, "I – I'm sorry, I'm just so frightened! With my memory gone I just don't know what to do!"

"Don't panic, you did the right thing," said Storm. "This is where you should come in an emergency. Look, I'm gonna leave you for just a second, OK? I'll be right back."

"Sure. I'll be all right."

Storm gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile and hurried to find Scott. He was in the security room.

"She doesn't know what happened," she told him. "At least she's safe. Have you found anything?"

"I'm not sure," he said, tapping away at a keyboard. "Whatever happened seems to have done damage to the security system. A lot of the cameras are out. Some of them might still be running. I'm trying to piece together what might have happened."

"What do you have so far?"

"Not a lot. Whoever did this knew enough about the security field to be able to approach without being seen. After the explosion, most of the internal systems went offline. I've just managed to isolate one camera that's still running."

"Where?"

"Upstairs somewhere. Let's see if we can get any playback of what happened."

He hit a couple of keys, and both of them watched what began to unfold on the screen in front of them. For a few seconds there was just an empty corridor, then suddenly two figures appeared.

"That's Melody, and her little kid – Athena," said Scott. "What are they running from?"

"They look terrified," Storm said in a concerned voice. "But why?"

They watched as Melody grabbed the child and began running for her life. The cause of her flight suddenly became evident. Four men were in hot pursuit, and gaining on her.

"Wait! Freeze it!" said Storm.

Scott paused the video, "Who are those guys?"

Logan had headed straight for the still-smoking remains of the upper west wing. If anyone was in need of rescue, that was the first place to look for them. He sniffed the air as he went, trying to pick up scents, but the smell of the smoke was overpowering – he couldn't identify any other smells underneath it. When he reached the blackened upper corridor, he stopped.

"Is anyone here?" he yelled. "Does anyone need help?"

There was no sound. At the other end of the corridor was a pile of black ash on the floor. He hurried towards it – perhaps there were some clues to what had started the fire in the first place. Reaching the small pile, he kneeled down and poked at the ashes. They were still warm, but not painfully so.

Wait – there was something there. There was something partially buried inside the small ash pile. Touching it carefully in case it might fall apart, Logan picked it up and held it in front of him, not sure what it was. Then it hit him. It was the blackened, burnt remains of a child's teddy bear.

"All right, continue – let's see what happened," said Storm.

Scott hit the controls to restart the video playback. They watched with mounting horror as the four invaders gained on the fleeing mother and child. As Pyro appeared at the end of the corridor, Storm felt relief wash over her. She was completely unprepared for what happened next. The flame from Pyro's lighter suddenly shot across the corridor towards the defenceless mother and child. At that moment the screen went black.

"_What_?" Storm cried. "Don't stop it now!"

"I didn't!" said Scott. "The camera stopped running at that point!"

"Play it back! Play it back again! There must be some mistake! Pyro wouldn't – "

Scott played the scene back again. At the very moment Pyro's fireball engulfed the two terrified figures on the floor, the video feed suddenly ended.

"But – but that's impossible – " Storm said in a horrified voice. "There's no way that he – I mean, those are Alexandra's – there has to be some other – "

Her communicator buzzed.

"Storm," she said.

"_It's Logan. The first floor corridor is completely burnt out. Any idea what happened_?"

"I, uh, we – we aren't sure yet. Any survivors?"

"_None that I can see. But I did find something_. _It might be nothing, but I have this horrible feeling..._"

"Can you come to us? There's something you need to see."

"_On my way."_

While they waited for him to get back, Scott tried to see if he could get anything more out of the security system. Storm, desperate to find out what was going on, went back to comfort Amnesia. It wasn't long before they heard the elevator descending, and Logan stepped through the doors.

"What did you find?" said Storm.

A grim look on his face, Logan held up the charred remains of the toy bear.

"Oh my – " she whispered, her hands covering her mouth in horror. "No..."

"What is it?" Logan demanded.

Wordlessly, she pointed him to the security room, and waited for the inevitable explosion of rage that would come.

"I _knew_ it!" she eventually heard Logan roar. "I knew we should never have trusted that bastard! I knew he couldn't be left alone with a human without trying to kill her! Why the _hell_ didn't any of you listen to me?"

Storm turned as Scott and Logan both emerged from the security centre.

"It looks like one of the cars is missing too," said Scott.

"So he's a thief as well as a murderer," Logan spat. "Well, I don't care what either of you have in mind – I am going after that child-killing son of a bitch right now!"

"Logan – "

"Get of my way! Cyclops, _move_!"

"Logan, wait!" Storm cried.

For a moment the two men grappled with each other, but Logan was far stronger and he flung Scott aside, running towards the door that led to the garage. The other two hurried after him, but were only in time to hear the roar of the motorcycle engine as Logan sped off into the night.

"Damn it!" Scott snapped.

Amnesia had suddenly appeared at their side, "Hey! Where'd he go?"

"Off on a short fuse," Scott growled in frustration. "As usual."

"Good – then I can finally do what I came here to do."

"Huh?"

Before Scott could react, the girl placed both hands on his head and something like an electric shock sent him reeling backwards, falling unconscious to the floor.

"What?" Storm whirled in surprise.

She too had no time to do anything as Amnesia grabbed both sides of her head. For a second Storm felt the strangest sensation of being _drained_, and then she too hit the floor unconscious.

Gasping slightly from the exertion of what she had just done, Amnesia tapped the side of her temple, activating the sub-dermal communicator she'd had surgically implanted before coming here, "Boss? Amnesia. Cyclops and Storm are out of the game."

"_Excellent. Return to base immediately. I do believe checkmate is imminent."_


	16. Chapter 16

Even as the next day dawned, the X-Men could tell that something was out of the ordinary, something was wrong. Scott and the others hadn't returned from the school last night, and hadn't made any of their scheduled contacts either. Every attempt to get in touch with them had failed. It was as if they had just disappeared.

Contacting the school had also proved fruitless. Where was Pyro? And where was Melody? She was supposed to be taking part in the conference this morning, and there had been no sign of her. What was going on?

As long as they didn't know what was going on, the other X-Men had decided the best option was to continue with protecting the conference. When they had a chance they would somebody to the school to investigate, but right now they simply couldn't spare anyone. Even as it was they were stretched desperately thin. It had meant putting more responsibility than they were happy with on very young shoulders.

To her amazement, Gemini had found herself placed in charge of the team guarding the rear entrance to the conference building. She had no real leadership experience, but the X-Men saw her as the best choice out of the four: Chronos was too inexperienced; Vertigo too unmotivated; and Atlas too easily distracted. With her sister involved in the conference, Gemini also had personal reasons to want to ensure the speakers' safety.

Things were different now that they knew there was a mutant assassin hunting the speakers. For all they knew, there could be more than one. This was no longer a training exercise or a simple introductory mission. This was real, and as tense as it could get. There was no margin for error whatsoever.

For Gemini, Atlas and Vertigo it wasn't unusual to be involved in life-or-death situations, but as teenagers enrolled in the Brotherhood their focus had usually been on the death of other people rather than trying to protect the lives of other people. That was a whole lot harder. But then, the reward was a whole lot greater as well. Gemini was trying to stay positive and look on the bright side of things.

She was still asking herself the same question over and over: _do I really want this_? _First I was their enemy. Then we became their allies. Then we became their students. Now they're asking us to join them. At first it was just an invitation to come along the mission and help out a bit, and see how we felt. Now we're being asked to play as big a part as anyone_.

She glanced at the guys and wondered if they were thinking the same thing. Atlas was peering intently at two small trees growing in a small patch of garden near the building. Vertigo was slouched against the side of the building, his arms folded, his eyes narrowed as he gazed at the crowd of humans fifty or so yards away, behind the police cordon.

Chronos caught Gemini's eye as she looked at him, and he said nervously, "This is – this is for real, right?"

"Looks that way," she said neutrally.

"My first time doing it for real," he said sheepishly, as if he was apologising for his nervousness.

Gemini didn't want to talk to him, but she remembered she was supposed to be in charge, so she tried to encourage him, "Don't worry. You'll do fine."

"Yeah. Hey – hey, you don't think this is all part of the training, do you?"

"Huh?"

"What if all this is part of an exercise? All of it – the conference, the speakers, the mutants? What if the X-Men are just testing us? You know, to see how well we do?"

Vertigo snorted, "Don't be stupid. Humans have died. The X-Men wouldn't let _that_ happen just for a training exercise. They'd let us die before the humans."

"Now _you're_ being stupid!" snapped Gemini. "They do actually care about us, you know! Even if you don't agree with what they say, they have given us somewhere to live for the past three years."

"Yeah, right. Only so they can brainwash us into becoming like them!"

"Did you ever think they might actually be right? Protecting people and trying to agree with them is better than just killing them."

"Humans aren't people! And how do you 'agree' with 'people' who try to kill you the moment you're born?"

"That's what the humans say about us, you know," said Atlas, who appeared to have brought his attention back to the present.

"Exactly," said Gemini. "People on both sides have made mistakes and done terrible things."

"Yeah, and they'll keep on doing it," Vertigo retorted. "There isn't going to be peace. Eventually one side will survive. We just have to make sure it's us."

Chronos looked disheartened. Atlas shrugged – he wasn't a great conversationalist. Gemini was running out of patience with Vertigo. He always had to be right! He always had to have the last word! He could never admit to being wrong about anything!

Fortunately, a distraction suddenly appeared in the form of a delivery truck that was approaching their position.

"Let's check it out," said Gemini.

Atlas and Chronos followed her towards it. After a moment, so did Vertigo. As much as he didn't care about the mission, he was bored and wanted something to do – maybe there would be another stash of porn on one of the delivery trucks.

It was the movement away from the building that saved the four teens' lives. Had they remained where they were, they would certainly have been vaporised in the huge eruption of glass and concrete that suddenly exploded from the rear of the conference building. The shockwave threw the four of them to the ground.

Within five seconds their whole world had changed. Suddenly the entire rear section of the building was a flaming, smoking mass of debris and fallen masonry; the crowds of onlookers and protesters were screaming and pushing against each other; fallen bodies were scattered around, some moving, some unmoving. What seemed like a million other sounds were going on at the time as well: among them the police barking instructions; emergency vehicles blaring their sirens; and endless camera flashes from those of the media who were at a safe distance.

Gemini lifted her head from the ground. Still in shock, she looked blankly at the chaos and terror going on in all directions around her. A few feet away, a woman was trapped under a fallen piece of the building's construction, screaming in pain and frantically calling for help. Gemini struggled to her feet and hurried over. Lying beside the stricken woman was a placard that read **NO MUTANTS MEANS PEACE**.

"Are you OK?" Gemini asked her hurriedly.

Screaming with pain, the woman managed to gasp, "I – I think my leg's broken!"

"OK, take it easy, I'll get this off you!"

But the block of concrete pinning the woman's legs was heavier than it looked. Gemini gritted her teeth and gasped as she summoned her twin to her side. The woman's screams stopped as her eyes widened and her face twisted with disgust and revulsion, "You're a _freak_! Get away from me!"

"Relax! I'm trying to help you!"

But the woman only screamed louder, "Help! _Help_! Get this freak away from me!"

Angrily, Gemini grabbed the concrete block and lifted, but the weight was still too much even for both of her. She glanced around. Vertigo was standing nearby.

"Hey!" she called. "A little help!"

But he was looking at the woman's fallen placard. Beside it was a crudely made life-size stuffed doll with X's for eyes and bullet-holes painted into its forehead. On its chest were scrawled the words: **BULLETS ARE TOO GOOD FOR MUTANT SCUM**.

"Why do you want to help that sub-creature?" he spat.

"Because maybe then she'll see there's more to us than what she thinks!" Gemini snapped impatiently. "Help me lift this off her!"

He laughed, "Forget it."

"Vertigo!"

He ignored her, wandering off in the other direction. Gemini was about to go after him, but the woman's screams of pain had started again, and suddenly Atlas and Chronos appeared on either side of her. Together the four of them gripped the concrete and lifted it off the woman, throwing it to one side.

Struggling desperately, the woman began dragging herself across the ground away from them. Her right leg definitely wasn't working and she was clearly in a lot of pain.

"Look, you shouldn't be moving!" Gemini told her. "Just stay here and we'll get an ambulance! Please, we really are trying to help you!"

"_Freak_! Get away from me! Go and die!"

Atlas shook his head at Gemini, "Forget it."

"But – "

"I said forget it. Come on, there are other people we can help."

Casting one last glance at the injured woman, and receiving a murderous hateful glare in response, Gemini re-absorbed her twin and moved away sadly. She could see human paramedics hurrying towards the woman. For a moment she could understand the way Vertigo felt. What was the point? What was the point of trying to help people if it didn't make the slightest bit of difference? They'd just saved that woman's life!

She forced the thoughts out of her mind. She had to focus. There were other people whose lives might be in danger too. She brightened – maybe they would be more receptive. Atlas was already hurrying forward towards a pile of rubble. Screams and vague signs of movement could tell her there was at least one person trapped underneath.

"Heck, there must be a ton of that stuff," Chronos panicked, "How can we lift all that?"

"Like this," Atlas said.

With a flick of his wrist, the concrete and rocks suddenly leapt from the ground, freeing the three men and one woman trapped underneath. Depositing the debris safely on the ground, he turned to Gemini and grinned, "Who says men can't multi-task?"

"Yes, very good," she smiled. "All right, what's next?"

Chronos shrugged, "Don't ask me, you're in charge!"

She glanced around. Paramedics were now seeing to the four people who'd been stuck under the rubble. The woman they'd helped earlier was nowhere to be seen. There were numerous others injured, and some bodies still lay unmoving. Were they dead? What should she and the guys do next? Where was Vertigo?

The shock was beginning to wear off now and she started to think more clearly. What on earth was going _on_? Why had there been an explosion? Had it been an accident? Had someone caused it deliberately? She reached for her communicator. Maybe the X-Men knew what was going on.

It was at that moment the second explosive struck. Atlas was standing directly beneath the section of concrete wall that suddenly disintegrated into a shower of debris and jagged rock.

"_ATLAS!" _Gemini shrieked.

He had only a split second to react, raising both of his hands to stop the cascade of stone and brick in mid-air above him.

"I – I can't hold this for long," he gasped.

There were still injured people close by, and two or three humans who'd thrown themselves to the ground, shielding their heads from the rocks that Atlas had prevented from falling on top of them. Gemini grabbed them, "It's all right! Quick, help me get these injured people out of here!"

One of them spat at her and yelled, "Get your hands off me, freak!" but the other two quickly started helping to pull the injured bodies away from the building. Gemini summoned her twin and the two of them pulled away a particularly heavy man, who was covered in blood but appeared to be in no immediate danger of dying. Two more paramedics appeared at her side, "We got him! Thanks for your help!"

Gemini still felt a little sad. She was risking her life to help these people, and that was the closest she'd gotten to any gratitude so far.

At the moment of the second explosion, Chronos had been standing a few yards further away from the building. He'd noticed two small girls standing on their own and crying loudly, without any adults appearing to be in charge of them. He'd been moving over towards them to check that they were OK, to ask if they needed help, when suddenly the second explosion had struck. Momentarily stunned by the blast, he could only watch in horror as an enormous metal pillar, torn free from the rest of the structure by the force of the explosion, came spinning through the air and smashed directly into the two screaming children, crushing them to death.

"No!" Chronos howled.

If only he could have done something! If only he'd got to them sooner! If only he'd had more time! _Wait a minute,_ he thought to himself, _more time_? _What am I talking about? I'm the one person on earth that doesn't apply to_! Clenching his fists and closing his eyes, he summoned an enormous effort and called on his power.

He felt time around him slow. The people rushing around frantically were suddenly slowing to a snail's pace. The sounds of screaming and sirens became lower in pitch. Even the wind that had suddenly picked up was slowing.

Then time stopped. There was no sound at all. The absence of it was the most terrifying aspect of freezing time – it was something Chronos had never, ever become accustomed to, and he wasn't sure if he ever would. For a moment or two he glanced around at the motionless, silent figures around him. Atlas was frozen in place, struggling to hold a mass of rocks and debris in mid-air above him. Gemini was pulling the last of the injured humans out from underneath. Vertigo was nowhere to be seen.

But stopping time wasn't enough to achieve anything. The two little girls were still lying dead, crushed beyond recognition beneath the metal pillar. Stopping time wasn't going to bring them back to life. There was only one thing Chronos could do, and it was something he wasn't usually brave enough to even try. It was dangerous and he didn't know if he could properly control it. He'd done it before maybe three or four times, but only for a few seconds. But he had to do it. He took a deep breath, braced himself for the supreme effort it would take, and pushed his power as far as it would go.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, time began to rewind.

Elated with his success, Chronos at first didn't even notice the bewildering sensation of sounds and events beginning to play backwards. With his eyes shut he couldn't see anything, but he could hear the screams and the sirens in reverse, and he just hoped he could keep this up for long enough. When the pain and the stress on his mind and body became too much to bear, he gasped and his power dropped. Opening his eyes, he just prayed it had been enough.

It was at that moment the second explosive struck. Atlas was standing directly beneath the section of concrete wall that suddenly disintegrated into a shower of debris and jagged rock.

"_ATLAS!" _Gemini shrieked.

He had only a split second to react, raising both of his hands to stop the cascade of stone and brick in mid-air above him.

"I – I can't hold this for long," he gasped.

There were still injured people close by, and two or three humans who'd thrown themselves to the ground, shielding their heads from the rocks that Atlas had prevented from falling on top of them. Gemini grabbed them, "It's all right! Quick, help me get these injured people out of here!"

One of them spat at her and yelled, "Get your hands off me, freak!" but the other two quickly started helping to pull the injured bodies away from the building. Gemini summoned her twin and the two of them pulled away a particularly heavy man, who was covered in blood but appeared to be in no immediate danger of dying. Two more paramedics appeared at her side, "We got him! Thanks for your help!"

Gemini still felt a little sad. She was risking her life to help these people, and that was the closest she'd gotten to any gratitude so far.

Standing a few yards away, Chronos already knew what was coming. Sprinting as fast as his exhausted body would allow, he covered the ground between himself and the two crying little girls. Both of them looked around as they heard him approach, and both froze to the spot with fear, huddling together for protection.

"Move!" he yelled, running towards them. "Get out of the way!"

Too frightened to know what was happening, they stayed rooted to the spot. In the corner of his eye, Chronos could see the metal pillar spinning through the air towards them. Without thinking, acting purely on instinct, he threw himself towards the two children, shoving them as hard as he could out of the pillar's trajectory. Both of them screamed as they went flying through the air, landing a few yards away.

Chronos landed on his hands and knees directly in the path of the metal pillar. He knew he wasn't fast enough to avoid it. He hadn't any strength left to freeze time. He knew he had no chance of surviving the impact. _At least I died a hero_, he told himself.

But then a thin, wiry arm grabbed him around the neck and yanked him out of the way at the last possible second. The metal pillar smashed into the ground where the two little girls had been standing just seconds ago, and skidded across the floor, eventually colliding with a police car and coming to a halt without harming anyone.

"Thanks!" was all Chronos could gasp to his rescuer.

Vertigo grinned, "Hey, what are friends for?"


	17. Chapter 17

Her ears still ringing slightly from the explosion, Gemini wasn't at first aware that the communicator by her ear was buzzing, "_Gemini, report. Gemini! Are you there? Are you OK?"_

Suddenly realising what it was, she hurriedly replied, "Gemini here! What's going on?"

"_Gemini – Shapeshifter here. Are you guys OK?"_

"Yeah, we're OK! What's happening?"

"_You tell us! Two explosions have been reported at the rear of the building!"_

The girl looked around her frantically for some sort of indication of what was going on, and why the explosions had happened.

"We don't know! It happened without any warning! Then another one just a few minutes later! We've tried to help get people to safety, but I think there have still been casualties, I don't know!"

"_OK – try to stay calm. Just keep doing what you can to help out. It's chaos over here too – one of us will be round as soon as we can_."

"OK!"

She looked round once more. There didn't seem to be anyone else in immediate need of help. The emergency services seemed to have taken charge of the situation. Atlas was moving rocks and rubble out of the way to help the ambulances get through. Vertigo was standing staring at the building, perhaps trying to work out what had happened. Chronos was crouched in front of two small girls, who appeared to have become rather attached to him.

Gemini noticed a small group of what appeared to be senior police and fire officers not far away. Maybe they knew what was going on. Maybe they could tell her how she could help. She hurried over.

"What's the situation?" she asked.

There was no response. A couple of them glanced at her, seeing only a seventeen year old girl who was small for her age, and ignored her.

"Hey, I'm trying to help!" she said, trying to keep her patience. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

One of them turned to snap at her, "What's going on is that we have over a dozen people dead and hundreds more injured, and we don't need our time wasted by kids who are obviously too stupid to understand the words 'get behind the security cordon'! Go on, get out of here!"

"Listen, you don't understand!" she snapped back. "I'm with the UN team! The X-Men? I'm one of the – one of the X-Men!"

For a second the words had caught in her throat. Was she really, finally, calling herself one of the X-Men? What would Dad think if he heard her saying that? What would Mystique think? She forced herself to put it to the back of her mind. She didn't have time to worry about that. Other things were more important right now.

"The mutants?" one of the cops spat. "Get out of here, you little freak! We don't want any help from you!"

"Jameson, that's enough," a senior officer barked. "Our orders are to co-operate with the mutants – they're vouched for by the UN."

"But sir – "

"Those orders come from the highest level, Jameson, so put your prejudices on one side and let's take whatever help we can get! Just check her name is on the list."

The senior cop then turned to Gemini. "What's your name?"

"Gemini."

"Real name?"

A few years ago she'd have burned with anger at the question. Gemini had been the only name she'd answered to when Pyro had rescued her and she'd joined the Brotherhood. Now...now there was still a twinge of impatience and annoyance, but she answered calmly, "Alexandra Allerdyce."

She'd started using Pyro's surname as her own two years ago when he had finally gotten around to "doing the paperwork", as he put it, and making her adoption as his daughter official and legal. She had abandoned the name of her human family. Melody had been upset by this at first, but she could understand why Gemini didn't want the reminder of her mother or their other sister.

"OK, you're on the list," said the officer. "Here's the situation as it stands. Two explosives have gone off so far, and unknown others could still be inside the building. We've already evacuated bystanders to a safe minimum distance, but there are still hundreds of people inside. We need to get them out by a route that's safe."

"Do we know what caused the explosions?"

"No. Our best guess is mutant terrorists."

The cop named Jameson looked angrily at the girl, "Yeah – know any?"

_Yes, I do, actually, and if you knew them too you probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night, _was what she wanted to retort, but she managed to keep herself under control.

"Has anyone made contact?" she asked. "Any ransom demands?"

"No, nothing."

"What can we do?" she asked. "We're here to help."

"Nothing until the bomb squad arrives. We can't evacuate until we know a path out of the building that's safe."

"How long will that take? Couldn't another bomb go off any second?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Jameson snapped.

She met his angry stare and replied coolly, "Yeah, I do. Watch this."

The next second her twin was standing by her side. As the identical girl materialised into existence beside her, several of the officers jumped slightly in surprise. One or two of them looked uncomfortable. Jameson looked disgusted.

"That's a real nice trick, kid," he growled. "How does it help us?"

"Re-spawning duplicate," Gemini indicated the twin with a jerk of her thumb. "I'll send her in to look for explosives. I've had some bomb-disposal training."

"Yeah, right! If you think we're sending in a mutant to 'dispose' of bombs left by mutants in the first place..."

"That'll do, Jameson!" his senior officer interrupted. "All right, Miss Allerdyce. I don't think you look old enough to know what you're talking about, but the UN's recommendation takes precedence over what I think. Go in there and do what you can."

"Right."

None of the other cops objected. Perhaps they felt the situation was desperate enough to warrant trying just about anything. Part of her also suspected that some of them weren't really that bothered about the safety of a mutant girl. She tried not to think about what Vertigo would say if she admitted that particular suspicion.

She tapped her communicator, "Iceman? Chris? Anyone there?"

"_Fliss here_."

"It's Gemini. Listen, I've been speaking to the cops. They want to evacuate the building but they need to clear out any other bombs that might be in there. They've agreed to let me send my twin inside. I can look around and try to defuse any other bombs."

Fliss hesitated for a second, then said, "_Sure, sounds like a plan. Be careful though! There are hundreds of people still trapped inside!"_

"Do they know what's going on?"

"_No – the police have cooked up a cover story of some kind. We doubt it'll last, though. The sooner we get them out the better."_

Another voice spoke into her ear, "_Gemini, this is Iceman. If you find any explosives but you don't have time to deactivate them, let me know their position and I'll try to get inside and ice them._"

"Will do."

_OK_, she thought to herself, _let's do this_.


	18. Chapter 18

Gemini took a deep breath, and her summoned twin began running towards the conference centre. The rear portion of the building was almost entirely in ruins, and the back entrance was blocked by wreckage and debris. She'd have to find another way in. Luckily it didn't take her long to find a broken section of wall, and she was able to half-squeeze, half-crawl her way into the building's interior.

Inside it was just as much of a chaotic mess as it had been outside. What had probably been a corridor in front of her was almost entirely covered with fallen masonry, wooden beams and shards of glass. Underneath a blackened wooden door she could see a person lying unmoving, and she hurried over to check their vital signs. It was too late. The man was dead.

There were two more people lying on the ground a little further along the passageway. Both of them were dead too, one crushed by a ruined wall and another had bled out from multiple glass fragments embedded in her chest. Years of experience had trained Gemini to keep her emotions subdued while she was on a mission, but it still upset her terribly that innocents had died this way. She forced herself to stay focussed, and moved on.

If there were more explosives inside the building, they could go off at literally any second. She tried to think. Where would be the most likely place for them to be have planted? Somewhere out of sight, obviously. These bombs were part of a terror campaign, so presumably somewhere that would cause the greatest structural damage to the building and the greatest loss of life to those inside.

She thought back to her days in the Brotherhood. They'd planted plenty of bombs and waged plenty of terror campaigns back then. Now what she needed to do was put herself back in that mindset, and think like a terrorist planting bombs.

_Where would I plant one in this building if that was my objective_? _Well, the best place would probably be on a structural join between sections. Chris showed us the plans for the building when we were prepping for the mission – the nearest one should be just down here..._

She prayed: _God, please let there be no more bombs! If there is one, please help me find it so nobody else dies_!

* * *

The third explosion differed from the first two in two very significant ways. First, it occurred at the front of the building rather than at the rear. Second, it was at least three times as powerful. At this point the majority of the conference speakers and conference centre staff were being evacuated from the building out of emergency entrances at that very side.

The police and security staff were desperately trying to keep them moving quickly but calmly enough that they didn't degenerate into a stampede. Looking back afterwards, the X-Men were able to realise how ruthlessly the terrorists had planned and calculated the sequence of explosives. The first two had been small and had caused relatively little damage and loss of life. They were designed mainly to spread panic, and to prompt the official evacuation procedure which involved the use of the emergency escape doors at the front of the building. Now that section itself was targeted by a far bigger explosion.

The deafening eruption wiped out all other sound as it roared through the early morning air. The massive fireball vaporised over forty people as they hurried to escape from the explosive-rigged building. Flaming debris was sent flying in all directions. The shockwave struck an even greater radius, hurling to the ground anyone within fifty yards of the building. Windows shattered, vehicles were overturned, and every tree and bush was uprooted and thrown into the air.

And then, for a moment, then two, there was no sound. Flames still burned, the wounded still screamed for help, and debris was still collapsing from the front of the building, but after the deafening blast of the explosion, all of these sounds were like mere whispers.

Rogue was the first of the X-Men to re-gather her senses. She had been knocked to the ground by the force of the blast, like everyone else, and at first she was still too caught in shock to know what had happened.

"Guys?" she gasped, tapping her communicator. "Is everyone all right? Report!"

But before she could listen for any responses, a voice beside her suddenly gave a hoarse whisper, "Oh no..."

"Bobby?"

"Rogue! Look!"

She looked, and her eyes widened in horror. The explosion had caused even more damage than was immediately obvious. The front wing of the building was crumbling, creaking, leaning forwards, and was about to collapse at any second. Underneath it lay the bodies of scores of people, and she had no way of knowing how many of them were still alive.

"Guys!" she screamed.

"Do whatever you can!" Iceman yelled at the rest of the X-Men, as he hurried forward.

Twin jets of ice shot out from his hands as he did the only thing he could think of, piling together an enormous monolith of ice that would – he hoped – break the building's fall. At the same time, the other X-Men were moving into action.

A puddle on the floor suddenly coalesced into Shapeshifter. He and Shock hurried forward and began grabbing as many of the dazed, stunned bystanders as they could, forcing them away from the building. Two women were trapped underneath an enormous metal girder – Helios zapped it with a laser from the palm of his hand, melting through the metal and enabling Cassandra to pull the two injured women free.

The children played their part as well. Phobia and Byblos were comforting a crying toddler who had gotten separated from his parents. Accel and the two boys were grabbing hold of other children who had no adults with them, and pulling them as far away from the scene as they could.

Iceman realised with a growing sense of dread that his hastily-constructed ice shield was not going to be enough to stop the building's collapse. It would at best only delay its fall, maybe slow down the process. He didn't know how much time they had to identify and rescue those who were still alive and lying underneath it. Probably less than half a minute. A glance to either side told them that his friends were already doing what they could in that regard. He fired off a final jet of ice to strengthen the foundation of his structure, and then desperately began checking the unmoving bodies lying closest to him.


	19. Chapter 19

Gemini's twin was at the other end of the building, and had remained more or less unaffected by the third explosion. The force of the blast had shaken her for a moment, but she had regained her footing and redoubled her determination to complete her task. So there _were_ more caches of explosives. That one had sounded much bigger than the previous two. The police bomb disposal team could be hours away for all she knew. Lives could depend on how quickly she managed to find and disarm more bombs.

Hurrying onwards, she approached the nearest structural join. If she were to plant a bomb, this was where she would put it. Her heart pounding, her mind desperately trying to focus on the task in hand and not worry about the larger scheme of things, she looked for anything that might be hiding an explosive device, anything that looked suspicious.

On the wall near her was an electric maintenance panel. She moved to examine it closer. It seemed as likely a place as any. She didn't have any tools to open it with, and while she didn't want to risk electrocuting herself, she knew there was no time. She would just have to pry it open. In the worst case scenario that her twin didn't survive, she would just have to endure the pain and send another one in.

There! She had managed to get a grip on the panel cover, and force it open. Ripping the rest of it away from the wall, she threw it aside and got her first look at the inside of the electrical unit.

"Oh, man..." she breathed.

She had been right. There was an explosive inside, a small device with two canisters of liquid and various wires hooked up to a timer. Binary liquids – as soon as it was triggered, they would mix and the explosion would result. She had no way of knowing what the chemicals were or how big the explosion would be. She just had to hope she could disarm it.

Forcing herself to stay calm, Gemini tried to reassure herself. It was OK. It was fine. She'd had loads of experience with explosives when she was in the Brotherhood. Pyro had taught her everything he had known. OK, that had mainly been experience of setting bombs and having them blow things up, rather than disarming them to stop things blowing up, but it was the same principle. And the X-Men had given her some basic training in bomb disposal.

It was OK. Everything would be fine. All she needed to do was remove the connection between the two canisters of liquid to prevent them from mixing. Easier said than done, of course – the connecting tube looked like it was right at the back of the device, flush against the wall. Reaching into the device with small, delicate fingers, she began to prise it apart.

_Oh God, please help me_, she prayed, _please don't let anyone else die_. _Please help me to disarm this._

At first glance it looked as if there weren't going to be any nasty surprises. It was wired up in a fairly standard way, the way Pyro had always taught her to do it. Actually, it was kind of weird – it was wired up in _exactly_ the way Pyro had always taught her to do it, step for step, piece by piece. Well, maybe that was just the best way. Normally there was some variation between the work of different bomb-makers, but – well, whatever. It didn't matter. All that mattered was disarming this bomb to stop any more people from dying. After that there would be time to try and figure out who had made it. Gemini forced her mind to concentrate on the task in hand.

Her communicator buzzed, "_Gemini_?"

"Can't talk just now," she snapped tersely. "Atlas, take over."

"_Atlas here._"

"_It's Rogue. There's been another bomb at the front of the building. The emergency exits are now impassable. We're going to start evacuating people through the rear entrance_. _Get ready_."

"_Uh – OK_. _I'll need to clear the way first._"

Gemini's heart quickened even faster. Now there was absolutely no margin for error. If she screwed this up and the bomb went off, everybody trying to leave the building by the back door would be blown to pieces. She took a deep breath, and forced herself to calm down. With a pounding heart and trembling fingers she wouldn't be able to do this.

_Please help me to do this_, she prayed again.

She had her hand on the connection tubing now. All that needed to be done was to cut it and seal up the ends so the two liquids would be unable to mix. A cut in the wrong place however, and she might accidentally cause the two liquids to start mixing prematurely! If that happened, hundreds of people would die. But it was OK. She knew how to do this. She knew how to put these bombs together and take them apart again. It was just that she'd never done it with so many lives at stake…

There! It was done. With a sigh of relief, she sealed the two ends of the severed tubing together to make it impossible for any mixing to take place. Now there was only one thing she needed to check. Depending on how thorough the bomb-maker had been, there might be some sort of back-up mechanism designed to take over if the mixing failed, perhaps a smaller explosive that would shatter the two canisters and allow the liquids to mix that way. Carefully guiding her hands even deeper into the wiring, she probed gently for anything suspicious.

OK. Now this was really spooky. There _was_ a back-up mechanism, a small chunk of plastic explosive, and it was in _exactly_ the place Dad had always taught her to hide one. Most bomb disposal experts wouldn't think to look for it there, he had always said. Gemini was very confused now. As far as she'd known, that had always been Dad's own personal technique, something he had invented himself, his signature touch when building an explosive device.

Well, maybe she had been wrong. Maybe it wasn't quite so unique. Maybe other people used it too. With the utmost of care and delicacy, she disconnected the plastic explosive and set it down harmlessly on the floor beside her. Then she let herself relax.

"_Hey guys,_" Atlas reported._ "The first of the, uh, evacuees are coming out of the back door_!"

Gemini had relaxed for all of two seconds when suddenly something moved in front of her. Her heart rose into her mouth. The detonator switch had just been activated! The bomb had just been triggered remotely! If she had missed anything, if the liquids mixed together, then the bomb was about to explode in her twin's face, killing all those who were trying to evacuate the building on the floor below!

She held her breath, and the seconds went by with the two liquids remaining trapped in their individual canisters. No mixing. No explosion. A few more seconds, and still nothing. The back-up had failed too.

_Thank you_, she prayed.

"Bomb deactivated," the exhausted girl whispered into her communicator.

"_Great work, Alex_!" came Rogue's voice. "_You've just saved hundreds of people's lives! I knew we could count on you_! _OK, get yourself outside and to safety. The police bomb squad has just arrived – they'll want to take it from here._"

"Will do."

Gemini was about to rise to her feet and head for the exit, when something caught her eye. There was something else inside the electric maintenance panel. She panicked for a second that it might be another explosive device, but it wasn't. It was a shiny metal object, and the light glinting off it was what had caught her attention. Curious, she leaned closer, and reached in to pick up the object that had reflected the light. Then she got her first look at what it was.

Her eyes widened and her heart started pounding once more. This was not good. This was seriously, enormously, _not good_. There was no way this could be here – it was impossible! She hurried back to the exit. She had to show this to the X-Men.

* * *

The X-Men had still been desperately pulling the wounded and unconscious people free from under the collapsing building, knowing that literally every moment counted, knowing that every second Bobby's ice structure managed to slow the building's fall was another body pulled to safety. It was impossible to tell how many were still alive. And when the building finally fell and those remaining were crushed to pulp, it would be impossible to ever know how many still alive had been left behind.

However, they weren't alone. Police, fire services and ambulance workers newly arrived on the scene, plus several humans from the watching crowds, were now helping too.

But it wasn't enough. When the ice shield finally gave way and the police chief gave the order for everyone to retreat, there were still a lot of people lying underneath the building's front edifice as it crashed into the concrete surface.

They'd done everything they could. There was nothing more that could have been done. There had been no warning of the explosions, no reason to think that the standard evacuation procedure should not be followed. But if the X-Men had been at full strength; if Scott, Storm and Logan had been here – and where the hell were they, exactly? – it could have been different. It would have been different.

Something was wrong, something besides what was going on here. Something must have happened at the school. Everybody who was supposed to be there was out of contact. Was this just an attack on the conference, or were the X-Men themselves being targeted as well?

Still, it had not ended in complete tragedy or disaster. The four teenagers assigned to guard the back of the building had done fantastically well, taking the initiative to save lives and to go far beyond the call of duty. Gemini in particular had distinguished herself, and the X-Men would have offered her full and immediate membership there on the spot if the present emergency hadn't made it necessary to postpone any decisions of that nature.

The mutants' involvement in risking themselves to save lives had also not gone unnoticed by the police or by the media crews in the vicinity. While the conference itself was now in ruins, things had not gone entirely badly from a PR perspective.

But it was still a huge backwards step. There had been so many hopes and dreams riding on the success of the conference, on forging a new foundation for relations between humans and mutants not just in the US but worldwide...and all of it had come to a crashing halt with the destruction of most of the conference centre and the deaths of many of those involved.

It had not been a good day. And what Gemini was about to tell them was going to make it an even worse one.


	20. Chapter 20

Her heart pounding, her anxiety growing with every step, Gemini pushed her way through the crowd that was rapidly gathering around the remains of the conference building. She'd successfully disarmed the last explosive, but the small object she had discovered while doing so, now clutched tightly within her palm, had the potential to be even more explosive still, if not in the same way. She hadn't wanted to risk telling the X-Men about it over the communicator – the risk of being overheard was too great.

The aftermath of the disaster was not a pretty sight. All of the injured survivors had been safely transferred to ambulances or police vehicles, and were on their way to receiving medical attention. Those who had not been so lucky – those who had been killed outright in the explosion, plus those who had not been reached in time and who had died from their injures – were now being dug out. The screams of terror that had rung in the air were now replaced by the moaning and crying of the bereaved.

Gemini tried not to look as she squeezed past people cradling their dead loved ones, children who couldn't find their parents, and rows of as yet unidentified or unclaimed bodies. This was something she'd never had to see when she was in the Brotherhood, something she had never allowed herself to care about before. Human lives had meant nothing to her three years ago – she felt so differently now.

Three years ago it would have been she and her friends who would have set off the bombs, and then watched and laughed at the X-Men's failure to save their precious humans. Now – well, she still wasn't entirely sure if she'd made the full transition to their side and their way of thinking – but she knew she didn't want to see people suffer and die any more. She wanted to help them if she could. She wanted to make up for what she had done before.

The crowd in front of her was growing ever larger and denser as men, women and children pressed in all directions, frantic to find some trace of their loved ones, hoping desperately that their friends and family were not among the lines of dead bodies the emergency services were still digging out.

"Excuse me – coming through!" she said, trying to squeeze through.

"Wait your turn," a large, burly man barked at her.

Then he looked round at her, and his eyes narrowed with anger, "You! I saw you earlier! You're one of those freaks! This is happening because of you!"

"Let me through!" Gemini said impatiently.

"I lost my _son_!" he screamed. "He's dead because of you freaks! "

Enraged, the man threw a punch at the girl's face. Gemini dodged to one side, but another man grabbed her from behind and pushed her forwards. She lost her balance and fell on to her hands and knees. Above her were angry voices; someone aimed a kick at her and missed; a child spat at her.

"Stop!" she yelled angrily, jumping to her feet. "Look, I'm the one who disarmed the last explosive in there! I probably saved all of your lives, you worthless sub-creatures!"

The crowd fell silent. The second those last words had left her mouth, Gemini regretted them. They had slipped out so easily, just as if it had been three years ago and she had been with the Brotherhood, plotting humanity's downfall. She had lost her temper. Being touched by men, in any way at all, was not something she was comfortable with, and besides, this was totally unfair! She _had_ saved their lives!

"Miss Allerdyce?" came a voice from behind her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. It was the senior police officer she'd spoken to before, the one she had persuaded to allow her into the building to search for bombs. The crowd, still staring at with a silent, cold hostility, turned their attention to him. Gently placing his hand on Gemini's shoulder, the cop spoke to the crowd, "This is Miss Allerdyce. I can personally vouch for what she says – most of you probably owe her your lives."

Uncomfortable with his hand on her shoulder, she was still grateful for his words. Disgruntled and angry, but with the fire taken out of their fury, the crowd began to disperse, turning their attention back to where it had been before.

"Thanks," she mumbled to him.

"Alex!" cried Shock, who suddenly appeared at her side. "What's going on?"

The police officer disappeared back to his job of trying to control the crowd, leaving the two women alone.

"Nothing," Gemini said quickly, hoping Shock had not overheard what she had just said.

"Are you sure? Are you all right?"

The teenager snapped impatiently, "I'm fine! Listen, I have to show you something!"

"What?"

"Something I found in there when I was deactivating that last bomb! I don't know what it means, but – look, can we go somewhere more private? We can't let anyone else see it!"

"OK. This way."

The two female mutants hurried away from the crowd to where it was quieter. Gemini looked around to make sure nobody was watching, then she carefully opened her hand."

Shock gasped. She grabbed the small metal disc from the girl's hand and turned it round to see clearly the letters engraved into its surface: **MUTANT FREEDOM**.

"Impossible..." she breathed.

"I know, that's what I thought!"

"We put an end to Majestic 12 three years ago! They were using these to frame mutants for terrorist attacks!"

The girl nodded quickly, "Yes! And the same thing's happened again today!"

Shock shook her head, "This can't be! We have to tell the others! We can't stay here any longer! If the press see this..."

"I know! We'll be lucky to get out alive!"

Touching her communicator, Shock spoke quickly, "We have a code zero! Everybody drop what they're doing and reconvene at the briefing room in the hotel!"

"_Too late_!" came a reply.

"Why, what's happened?"

Suddenly there were shouts, at first from one side, then from another, then seeming to come from all directions at once. But these were not cries of mourning or grief at the loss of loved ones. These were shouts of anger, of fury, and of vengeance.

"What's going on?" Gemini asked apprehensively.

"I think they've found another one of these!" cried Shock, holding the disc that read **MUTANT FREEDOM**. "There must have been more along with the other explosive charges!"

The teenager gasped, "What do we do?"

The crowd had seen them, and someone yelled, "Mutants! They're the ones who did this! Get them! Kill them!"

The humans began running towards them, some with makeshift weapons, some with nothing other than their fists, but all driven by rage and with only one thing on their mind: revenge. The two women braced themselves, and Shock said, "Run!"

"What? No! Let me help you!"

"Alex, run!"

Both hands out, Shock struck the ground in front of the onrushing humans with lightning blasts. Amazed, the front row came to a sudden halt, but the growing mob behind them was still pushing forward. Gemini took a deep breath, clenched her muscles, and summoned a twin.

"Stay back!" Shock snapped at the humans. "We're not your enemy!"

"Tell that to my wife!" a voice screamed. "She's lying dead because of you scum!"

"Listen, we didn't do this!"

"Kill them!"

Talking was not doing any good. They were driven into a frenzy, incapable of listening to any reasoned argument.

"Run!" Shock yelled at Gemini once more. "Try to find the others!"

"Forget it! I'm with you!"

The crowd of humans descended on them with howls of anger and vengeance. Shock unleashed an enormous fan of electric bolts in front of her, flinging a dozen or so men backwards, but serving only to increase the mob's anger. Gemini moved fast, using her small size to her advantage, ducking and twisting between attackers, aiming to knock as many of them unconscious as possible. She suddenly realised this was a lot harder than just outright killing people.

Within moments they knew they'd be surrounded, and would have no choice but to either start killing or allow themselves to be killed. At that moment, however, reinforcements arrived, in the form of Atlas and Vertigo. Atlas dropped to his knees and slammed both fists into the ground, sending a seismic shockwave towards the humans surrounding Gemini, throwing them to the floor. Vertigo smashed his fist into the throat of one man, who dropped lifeless to the floor. Gemini could not see if the man was dead or still alive, and a moment later she lost sight of both of them.

"Atlas!" Shock yelled. "Make a trench!"

Atlas stomped one foot into the ground, creating a jagged tear in the earth which quickly widened until a chasm several feet deep separated the four mutants from the humans they'd temporarily managed to drive back.

"Now run!" Shock cried. "There are too many of them! And we don't gain anything by killing them!"

"Guys!" yelled a panicked Chronos, who had suddenly appeared on the scene. "We're under attack! What do we do?"

"We know!" Gemini snapped. "What do you think we've been doing?"

The boy shook his head, "I didn't mean the humans! I meant _them_!"

Shock, Gemini and the guys whirled round to face the way he was pointing.

"It's _her_!" Gemini shrieked.

Approaching them from the other direction, running across the open ground with dead humans in their wake, were three figures. The first was extremely tall, with long hair, and an extraordinary weapon of some kind on his right arm. The second was entirely clad in black robes, with a turban around his face, and an enormous razor-sharp sword in each hand.

But it was the third who caught Gemini's attention. Tall, slender and with her face hidden behind the mask of her black cat-suit, she was nevertheless unmistakeable as the woman who had tried to assassinate the speaker last night, whom Logan and Gemini together had been unable to fight off.

Shock spoke rapidly into her communicator, "I need everyone at my position, immediately! Enemy mutants incoming!"

"_On our way_!" Iceman's voice responded. "_Get the kids to safety_!"

Shock turned to Gemini, "You heard him! Get out of here!"

"For the last time, we are _not_ kids!" the duplicator shouted furiously. "If you're fighting these people, I'm with you!"

"I don't mean you!" Shock yelled impatiently. "I mean Accel and Phoebe and the others! Find them, get them away from here! All of you! Leave this to us!"

Gemini sighed with frustration, but followed orders. She turned to the three guys, "Quick, let's find the kids!"

The humans were still struggling to make their way across Atlas' trench, so the four teenagers were able to hurry away from the scene unmolested. Out of the corner of her eye, Gemini could see Iceman, Shapeshifter and Rogue running headlong towards Shock's position, with Helios and Cassandra not far behind.

Where were the kids? Were they OK? X-Men uniforms apparently didn't come in children's sizes, so the five kids had worn their normal outdoor-training outfits, the benefit of which was that they weren't recognisable as mutants in the way that Gemini and her friends were. It was therefore extremely unlikely that any humans would have gone after them. Still, in the chaos and the confusion, and with enemy mutants now on the scene, anything could happen.

Wait! The kids had communicators! They'd been given them in case they got lost or in danger, but with strict instructions only to use them in emergencies. She touched the communicator in her ear, "Accel? Phoebe, Bibi? Icarus? Turtle? Are you guys there?"

For a moment there was no response, and her heart sank. Then Phoebe's shaky voice came into her ear, "_We're OK_! _What's happening_?"

"Where are you, honey? We're coming to you!"

"_We're at the parking lot_! _Gemini, is that you? What's going on_?"

"They're at the parking lot!" Gemini cried to her friends. "Come on!"

Chronos wasn't paying attention, "Oh, damn – look!"

He pointed back the way they had just come. Gemini looked but could see nothing through the chaos.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"That guy with the weapon on his arm – I think he just killed someone! He fired something out of his arm and it went straight into – "

"Who was it?" Vertigo demanded. "Who got killed? A human?"

"I don't know! Someone wearing black! It could have been one of our teachers!"

"We've got trouble!" Atlas cried. "Look over there!"

One of the three enemy mutants, the guy with the robes and the swords, had somehow gotten away from the X-Men, and was heading straight for the teenagers.

"Keep him away from the children!" Gemini shouted at the others. "I'll handle him! All of you, go!"

"Are you crazy?" Atlas yelled. "I'm staying with you!"

"So am I!" Chronos declared.

Gemini looked at Vertigo, "You go! Keep the children safe! Please, Vertigo, I know you hate the X-Men, but please keep the children safe!"

"Relax!" he said, giving her a rare smile. "Even I care about the kids! Give me as much time as you can!"


	21. Chapter 21

Vertigo took off at a run for the parking lot. As he went, he scanned the area for any sign of the five children, but could not see them anywhere. Vertigo could not lie about it – he did care about the kids. He didn't care about the X-Men or their insane ideas or their stupid conference or the lives of humans, but he _did _care about the children.

"Guys?" he called as he stopped in the parking lot. "Where are you?"

He felt a sudden rush of air movement, and Accel appeared in a blur at his side, "Here! We were hiding! What's going on, what's wrong?"

"Everything, I think," he said. "Listen, we have to get out of here. Where are the others?"

"Behind me. They can't run as fast."

Within a few moments the other four children, frightened and excited at the same time, arrived beside Accel, all of them shouting and clamouring for attention and reassurance:

"Vertigo! What's happening?"

"Is everyone OK?"

"Where are the teachers?"

"Are we safe?"

He held up his hands impatiently, "Shut up, all of you – we don't have time for Twenty Questions! We are getting out of here – right now!"

"Where are we going?" said Accel.

"Somewhere safe."

"How?"

He thought hard. They'd flown over in one of the X-Jets that morning, but that was parked back at the hotel, which wasn't far away but between them and it was the ongoing battle between the X-Men, the unknown mutant attackers, and the enraged human crowd. Vertigo glanced over his shoulder to see how it was going. It was impossible to tell. There were too many humans. He couldn't recognise anyone he knew. For the children's sake he hoped the X-Men could hold their enemies at bay. Did he actually care whether the X-Men themselves survived? He wasn't sure. Did he care if the other teenagers survived? Well, Chronos was a bit lame, but he was probably Vertigo's best friend. Gemini and Atlas? So full of themselves it was unbearable. Maybe a beating at the hands of others would bring them down to earth a bit.

"Vertigo!" Accel snapped, punching his arm. "I said how are we getting out of here?"

He brought his attention back to the immediate problem, "We'll take a car."

"But none of these cars are ours! We checked!"

"We'll borrow one."

"Borrow? You mean steal?"

"Whatever! We'll take that one!"

The kids turned to look at the car he indicated: a big, powerful jeep, almost new. Hurrying towards it, Vertigo opened one of the many hidden compartments on the X-Man uniform he was wearing, and pulled out the small multi-tool he had discovered while exploring the uniform's gadgets the other day. Designed by Shapeshifter, it was supposed to be able to, among other things, pick almost any vehicle or building lock other than serious heavy-duty security gear. He flicked it open and quickly put it work forcing the lock on the jeep's door.

"Uh – Vertigo?" Phoebe said.

"What?" he snapped impatiently at the little girl.

"I, uh, I think the person who owns this car has just noticed you 'borrowing' it..."

"Hey!" an angry voice roared. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Get away from my car!"

Vertigo looked up to see a tall man with a briefcase and very expensive suit storming towards him, pulling a cellphone from inside his jacket.

"Damn kids!" he spat. "I'm giving you three seconds to get away from there or I call the cops!"

Vertigo ignored him and returned to picking the lock. If it came down to it, he knew he could snap the guy in half without even breaking a sweat. The man was still approaching, "Are you deaf? Or are you just plain stupid? Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Get out of here!" Accel shouted at him.

"Shut up, you little piece of trash! Get away from my car!"

But she was pointing at something behind him, "I mean it! Get out of here if you want to live!"

The man turned, and as he did so his eyes bulged and his jaw dropped with horror as the enemy mutant with the two enormous swords came running towards him. Dropping his briefcase and diving for cover between a row of cars, he managed to get out of the attacker's way.

"Vertigo!" Accel screamed. "Incoming!"

Vertigo glanced up and swore as he saw the onrushing enemy. He called to the children, "OK, I've got it open! Get in! Quickly! Move!"

The terrified children piled inside the car. The only one who did not move was little Bibi, who stood, seemingly frozen with fear, until Vertigo grabbed her and shoved her as hard as he could towards the car. She fell over and cried out with pain as she hit the ground, but her panic spell was broken, and she ran towards the jeep, the others grabbing her hands and pulling her inside.

Vertigo turned to face the enemy, and was only just in time to duck beneath a sword swipe aimed directly at his throat. The man whirled round on the spot, and less than a second later the other sword came scything through the air towards Vertigo's chest. He hit the ground and rolled over, kicking out at the swordsman's legs, toppling him to the floor. At the same moment he was reaching inside another pocket of his uniform to retrieve one of the small flash-bangs that he and Chronos had discovered and agreed to store away secretly for prank purposes at school. Hurling it at the attacker's face, Vertigo turned and ran for the car.

Hearing the bang and then the enemy's yell as the flash temporarily blinded him, Vertigo knew he had bought a few seconds, enough time to start the car and get it moving. Yanking open the driver's door, he found Accel in the driver's seat. She'd managed to start the engine – without the keys, which was impressive, something she must have learned during an 'unofficial' lesson at school, most likely from Pyro – and was trying to reach the pedals with her feet.

"Move!" he yelled.

With a gymnast's grace, she rolled over into the passenger's seat and he got into the front, gunning the engine and pulling out of the space. The swordsman had recovered enough of his sight to dive out of the way, dropping both of his swords in the process. As the car accelerated out of the parking lot, the four children clustered in the back seat watched as the enemy mutant grabbed at his swords, and could see the previous owner of the jeep still running for his life in the opposite direction. The kids sagged with relief as they saw the attacker growing smaller and smaller in the rear window.

"Who was _he_?" Accel demanded.

"Don't know! Bad guy!"

"Yeah, but _which_ bad guy?"

"_Do I look as if I know_?" Vertigo yelled at her.

She recoiled from the anger in his voice, and mumbled, "I'm sorry."

The kids were too frightened to speak for the next few minutes, and he was grateful for that. But it didn't last long.

"Vertigo?" said Phoebe nervously.

"_What_?" he snarled.

"He – he's still there!"

"Who's still there?"

"The guy with the swords! He's still coming after us!"

Vertigo glanced in the rear view mirror. _Crap_. She was right. Directly behind them was a guy on a motorbike. It was the same guy. He was getting closer with every second. _How stupid am I_, Vertigo cursed himself, _if we can steal a vehicle, so can he_! The kids in the back were terrified; he could hear one of the little girls crying.

"Stop it! Stop crying!" he yelled, losing his cool completely. "You stupid little waste of space, I said _stop_!"

Her frantic sobs only grew louder. He tried to stay cool. Shouting at the kids wouldn't do any good. It certainly wouldn't keep them calm. But he had enough to focus on with driving an unfamiliar car, and keeping his eye on the motorbike behind them. It was time to delegate.

"Accel," he said, trying to keep his voice as level as he could.

"Yeah?"

"Keep the others calm."

"Right, I – I'll try."

She turned in her seat, "Bibi, it's gonna be OK. Don't worry, we're gonna get through this, OK?"

Vertigo left her to it. Now he could give his full concentration to trying to lose their pursuer. It wasn't going to be easy. The bike was faster and far more manoeuvrable than the car. They weren't going to out-run him and they weren't going to find any gaps he couldn't get through. OK, it was time to stop focussing on their weaknesses and try to start focussing on their strengths. What advantages did the car have? Well, endurance. It would come off better in a collision. _Right_, he thought sarcastically. Crashing the car into the bike would certainly rid them of their pursuer, but it might also injure the kids.

He looked in the rear view mirror again. The bike was still there, staying just behind them. Traffic was light, and as long as they kept moving, there was little their pursuer could do to actually harm them. There was no way he could handle a sword while keeping control of his motorbike. But when traffic got heavier and they slowed down, Vertigo wasn't so sure they'd be safe. He had to find some way to get rid of their pursuer. One advantage the car had was a bigger gas tank, but he had no desire to keep on driving until the bike ran out of gas.

"Vertigo?" said Accel softly.

"What?"

"Can I – can I ask you a question?"

He tried to keep himself from yelling at her again. He needed her help to keep the younger kids in the back from panicking. Swallowing his impatience, he said, "Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry I shouted at you."

"That's OK. Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe."

"Back to the school?"

"No – it won't be safe. These people, whoever they are, obviously know who the X-Men are. They might come after us there too."

"Then where?"

He sighed, "You remember the island we lived on when we were in the Brotherhood?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that wasn't our only place. Pyro kept a number of safe-houses in various parts of the United States. He made us memorise all of their locations. One of them isn't far away from here. That's where we're going. We can stay there until we figure out what to do next."

"OK."

She sat back, feeling a little better. At least they were going somewhere safe.

"Of course, we have to lose this guy first," Vertigo growled.

"Phoebe," said Accel. "Can you use your power to scare that guy off?"

"I wish," Phoebe said. "But I still can't just turn my power on and off like a light-bulb. Like, it comes and goes, and I just have to try and control it when it does."

"Man, I wish this car had weapons," said Icarus excitedly. "Like in James Bond!"

For a moment Vertigo wondered if the boy had any inkling of the danger they were actually in, but he guessed the kid was just trying to hide his fear, not wanting to show it in front of the girls.

"All cars should have weapons," he said, in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Dual machine gun turrets behind the lights, rocket launchers in the roof, and a smokescreen release system in the trunk."

"Yeah, totally! And all controlled from right back here!" one of the boys cried eagerly.

Vertigo got his attention back on their pursuer. The miles passed by underneath the car's wheels, with the motorbike staying just behind, the swordsman no doubt realising he couldn't do anything to harm the car or its occupants without harming himself more. He knew they would have to stop eventually, and then he would make his move. Or so Vertigo had first thought. Now he was more worried that the guy was simply keeping track of their position while calling for reinforcements. More enemies could show up at any moment with something more dangerous than a motorcycle. A truck. A tank. A helicopter. Vertigo tried not to let his imagination run out of control, but still, he knew something had to be done. He couldn't just let this guy follow them forever. But what could he do? Phoebe could only use her power when it came to her. He could order Icarus to fly out there and knock the guy off the bike, but he was supposed to be keeping the kids safe, not endangering their lives.

"OK, guys," he said finally. "This is what I want you to do – "

He was cut off by a sudden burst of sound from the right side of the car.

"He's got a _gun_!" Bibi shrieked.

Vertigo looked in his wing mirror. The motorcycle was alongside them now, the swordsman riding with one hand, while the other held an automatic weapon. He aimed at the car.

"Accel, get down! Turtle – shell, _now_!"

Accel hit the floor at the front of the car, just as Turtle took a deep breath and the bony growth on the back of his neck exploded outwards into a shell that covered his entire body from harm. Bullets riddled the side of the car and shattered the windows, but rebounded from the impenetrable shell that the four kids in the back were now huddled beneath.

"Hold on," Vertigo called to Accel.

He turned the wheel sharply to the right, but the attacker had anticipated it, and the bike swerved away to safety. He raised the gun again and fired once more. Accel screamed and hugged the floor. Vertigo snarled angrily and swerved the car towards the bike a second time. This time the swordsman was caught by surprise, and could do nothing to prevent the car smacking the bike full on, and sending the motorcycle skidding across the freeway into the path of an oncoming truck. The swordsman tried to leap to safety, but another truck obscured their view and they lost sight of him.

"Are you guys OK?" asked Vertigo. _"Guys?_ Speak to me, is everyone all right?"

Five shaky voices assured him that they weren't hurt.

"Did we get him? Accel, did we get him?" asked Icarus.

"I dunno, I didn't see! Vertigo, did you see?"

"No, I couldn't see anything. But he isn't coming after us any more. I think we lost him."

"Are we all right?" asked Phoebe eagerly. "Are we safe?"

"I think so. Keep an eye out just in case he comes back."

As they drove on, the four children in the back kept looking through the back window to check that the swordsman had not caught up with them. They were terrified every time they saw a motorbike, but none of these bikers showed any interest in them, quickly accelerating past the car and disappearing into the distance.

"How long till we get there?" Accel asked.

"Not long," said Vertigo. "An hour, maybe more."

"Can the bad guys find us there?" asked Phoebe apprehensively.

"No. Nobody knows where these places are except Pyro and me and maybe one or two other people who used to be in the Brotherhood."

The kids seemed relieved. Then Accel turned back to him and said, "What about our friends? Back at the conference! Are they OK?"

Vertigo said nothing. He'd managed to get the kids to calm down and he didn't want to share with them his fears of what might have happened to the others. Gemini, Atlas and Chronos hadn't even been able to delay the swordsman, let alone stop him. Neither had the X-Men. With a growing sense of foreboding, Vertigo realised he was going to have to confront the possibility that some of them, maybe even all of them, were dead.


	22. Chapter 22

Logan looked grimly through the windshield of the motorcycle as he continued his pursuit. He smelled a rat, and not only because he was following one. This seemed far too easy. Surely Pyro could not have been ignorant of the tracking devices present in all of the X-Men's vehicles. Surely he could not have been stupid enough to flee in one, without even deactivating the tracker. OK, so Logan had headed in the wrong direction to start with, and it had taken him hours to finally pick up a trace of the signal, but surely Pyro was not this careless. Logan guessed he would find that out when he caught up with the tracking signal. The bike's superior speed should make that only a matter of time.

Inside he was boiling with rage. He'd known, from the very first minute of the so-called alliance between Scott's X-Men and Pyro's Brotherhood, that the fire-starter could not be trusted. While the others had been fooled by Pyro's supposed devotion to the duplicating kid Gemini, and his apparent loss of interest in murdering humans, Logan had always harboured suspicions. There was just no reason why Pyro should suddenly stop killing. He'd been doing it all of his adult life, and there was no reason why he should suddenly lose interest. Well, actually there was a reason. The reason Logan had suspected from minute one: politics. In a position where the X-Men were stronger, where Pyro's trump card – Gladiator – had made clear his refusal to carry on fighting the X-Men, it was only sensible for him to feign a more peaceful outlook.

But Logan knew that Pyro had been plotting all this time, looking for another way to restart his war of hatred on the human population. Magneto was dead, Mystique had vanished, the Plague had backfired, so Pyro had had to start afresh and look for another murderous scheme. Now it seemed he'd found one. It all made sense now. It all fit in. The murdered speakers, the attack on the school, it was all part of a plan to destroy hopes for peace. Once humans and mutants were once more at each other's throats, Pyro would cease his pretending and launch a new bid to eradicate humanity.

Logan frowned for a second. He had to admit, there were times even he had doubted he was right. Pyro's devotion to young Gemini had seemed so genuine. At times he'd actually seemed a like a father with a daughter. There had been times when someone had made a slip-up and an opportunity had presented itself for Pyro to hurt humans, and Logan had watched him, convinced he would take it. He hadn't – at least, not until tonight. There could be no doubting what they had seen on the security tape. Melody and her little girl had been burned alive.

Wait a minute – wasn't Melody Gemini's sister? Man. That was going to be hard for the kid to take. At least it was proof that Gemini wasn't part of Pyro's scheme. As much as he hated to admit it, Logan was actually growing fond of the duplicating girl. Her determination and her fiery spirit, now channelled in the right direction, were proving a great help. He couldn't help feeling bad about how she was going to handle this.

He was getting close now. The tracking signal indicated Pyro was less than five miles ahead, travelling far slower than Logan was. It didn't make sense – why the hell hadn't he deactivated the tracker? He _must_ have known it was there. It was possible he just wasn't thinking straight; after all, he'd just killed two defenceless people in cold blood. He hadn't even left any remains. He must have burned the bodies down to ash.

_When I'm finished with him, he'll beg to be burned alive_, Logan thought furiously. What he was about to do wasn't anything to do with the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood. It wasn't political. It wasn't a mission, or a duty. This was personal. This was something he should have done a long time ago. At last, Scott and Storm and Oculus and whoever else had been taken in by Pyro's lies, weren't around to try and stop him.

* * *

Back at the conference centre, in the midst of the unfolding chaos, determined to buy Vertigo as much time as possible to get the children to safety, Gemini had charged the mutant swordsman head on. She timed her attack carefully, so that the very moment he was prepared for her approach, she suddenly summoned her twin and began running at him from two different directions. That was when he used his surprise attack. Stretching his arms out to either side, he suddenly began to spin at impossible speed, whirling towards both of her, the enormous swords cutting through the air like lasers.

Gemini was small for her age, and her lack of height was what saved her life. An inch taller and she would not have had time to duck underneath the blades, both twins hitting the ground in a perfect somersault, both kicking out from a grounded position at the swordsman's legs, their combined attack knocking him on to his back.

Atlas was on the scene now, summoning an enormous chunk of debris from the wreckage, and preparing to hurl it at the enemy mutant's head. But before he could do so, Chronos yelled at both of his friends, "Behind you! The humans!"

Gemini looked round in horror. The humans had finally managed to find a way over the trench that Atlas had created, and they swarmed on to the scene, waving whatever makeshift weapons they had to hand.

"Stop!" Gemini screamed. "We're not the enemy. They are!"

She pointed at the swordsman, who was already on his feet and whirling with both swords outstretched, decapitating the two humans who were reckless enough to charge at him. But her words met with no response, and she quickly found herself surrounded by six or seven very large, very angry humans. She ducked under a punch from one of them, and hurried towards her friends.

"Gemini!" Chronos called. "What do we do?"

"Stop him!" she shouted, pointing at the swordsman, who was slicing and dicing his way through the crowd of humans, making effortless progress towards the parking lot, where she could just about see Vertigo and the kids.

The crowd was too large and too dense. Gemini tried to fight her way through to get to the enemy mutant, but there were too many humans, and all of them were intent on attacking her instead of their real enemy. If they had still been in the Brotherhood, this would not have been a problem. She knew how to kill people with a single punch or kick. But that wasn't an option now.

Matters really didn't need to be made any worse, but made worse when they were when a _phut_ sound came from behind her and one of the humans trying to grapple with her immediately collapsed to the ground with an enormous metal rod sticking out of his chest, blood pouring everywhere. Loping through the crowd with his tall, gangling frame was another of the enemy mutants, the one with the bizarre weapon in his hand. He aimed at a human who was approaching him, firing another huge spike into the man's neck and killing him instantly.

Gemini panicked. What had happened to the X-Men? Hadn't they been fighting this guy?

"Get out of here!" she screamed at the humans.

At that moment, however, there was a sudden blinding pain in the back of her head as she was struck from behind by a human with some blunt object. Crying out in pain and pitching forward, Gemini fell helplessly in front of the mutant with the spike weapon. He aimed directly at her head.

"Oh no you don't!" came an angry voice from behind him.

The spike-firer howled in pain and was himself thrown to the ground, and Gemini looked up to see Helios standing over him, his gloves off, light bursting from his palm, his hand curved so as to focus it into a laser.

"Honey, behind you!" Cassandra's voice shrieked from Gemini's right.

Helios turned on the spot, just in time to see a grenade roll to a stop at his feet. Without Cassandra's warning, he would have had no chance to react, and as it was he only just had time to pick up the explosive and hurl it away from him to an open space where it could harm no-one.

"Where did that come from?" he demanded.

"Look out!" Cassandra screamed.

She grabbed him and pulled him out of the way as the previously stunned spike-firer suddenly leapt to his feet and with a _phut_ sent a spike zipping through the air to where Helios' neck had been seconds ago. Gemini slammed her fist into the back of the attacker's head, eliciting another shout of pain and causing him to whirl round to face her.

"_Gemini_!" came another shriek from Cassandra.

_Phut_.

There had been no time to react. Gemini's mouth gaped open but no sound would come out, as the enormous spike had pierced her lungs, and only blood was gushing from between her lips.

"_No_!" came a scream.

Atlas hurled an enormous rock at the spike-firer's head, smacking him clean in the face and sending him flying through the air.

"_Gemini_!" the teenage earth mutant howled as he ran towards her.

Gemini swayed, her body unresponsive to any of her brain's commands, and collapsed on to her face. She couldn't breathe and she could feel her vision swimming in front of her. The pain would have been unbearable for any normal person, but Gemini's pain level was far beyond that of any normal person, and with a supreme effort of will she was able to remain conscious. She was aware of her own blood pooling around her. She was aware of Atlas beside her, his hands squeezing hers, his cries for her to hold on.

"Is she OK? Is she OK?" Cassandra sobbed, running to her friend's side.

Before she could get there, however, a foreflash suddenly came into her mind's eye, and she changed course. Another grenade, arcing through the air towards them from behind where Helios was standing, landed directly in front of her. With the forewarning she was able to kick it clear and shield her eyes from the resulting explosion.

"Where the hell are those coming from?" Helios snarled.

"There!" Cassandra cried, pointing.

Flitting amongst the crowd of increasingly panicked humans, she had seen a figure in dark glasses and a black trench-coat, with a grenade in each hand.

"I've got him," said Helios. "Cover me!"

Chronos was still fighting his way through the crowd, trying to keep the swordsman in sight, but falling further and further behind as the enemy continued to simply slash his way through any humans who got in his way. He was still heading for the parking lot where Vertigo and the children were. What was drawing him that way? Why would he be going after Vertigo? Did he know him from somewhere? Although they were friends, Chronos had to admit that Vertigo made people dislike him pretty easily.

Whatever. It didn't matter. He was a friend, in danger. And the children were there too. Chronos didn't have much contact with the younger children at the school – he was only a few years older than they were, really – but he still felt an instinct to protect them. What precisely he was going to do if he managed to catch up with the swordsman, he wasn't entirely sure. Maybe he'd freeze time and steal the guy's swords, or just punch him out. Or both.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the attack coming. The woman dressed in the black catsuit, the woman he had seen earlier, suddenly lunged at him out of the crowd, a sideways kick catching him in the jaw, knocking him backwards. She followed up with a punch aimed at his throat, which Chronos was only just able to react in time to, raising both of his arms to deflect her fist. A second later her leg spun round in another devastating kick, throwing him headlong, causing him to cry out in pain.

He froze time just long enough to get out of the way of her next attack – feeling stunned, he didn't have enough strength or concentration to do any more than that – and scrambled to his feet, running round behind her. As time restarted, he smacked his fist into the back of her head, causing her to scream in pain and fall forward on to her face. But she flipped upright almost immediately and turned to face him, murder in the eyes that were the only thing he could see through the cat-suit. From somewhere on her person she produced a tiny pistol, which she lifted and aimed directly at Chronos' head. He panicked. From point blank range there was no way she could miss, and he hadn't recovered enough strength to freeze time again.

With an angry shriek, another woman suddenly appeared out of nowhere, kicking the gun out of the assassin girl's hand, then swivelling to drive her fist into the masked face. The girl in the catsuit gave another scream of pain and staggered backwards.

"_Leave my friends alone_!" Gemini screamed at her.

"You..." the cat-suited woman snarled, in a voice that Chronos realised sounded almost exactly identical to Gemini's. "How many times do we have to kill you?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing!" Gemini hissed angrily. "Who the hell are you? What do you people want? Whatever it is, I promise you it's not going to happen!"

The other girl laughed, "It already _has _happened! Look around you – see how your precious conference lies in ruins. See how you and the humans have turned on each other! See how the struggle between mutant and human always turns to violence, and when it does, the strongest invariably emerge victorious!"

"Might doesn't make right," Gemini snapped.

"Who said anything about right? There's no such thing. The rules are whatever the strong decide. We are the strong – so either get out of our way, or die along with your fellow weaklings!"

Chronos gasped. Who was she talking about? Was she talking about the X-Men? Were they dead? Or was she talking about the humans, so many of whom had already died today? Gemini and the other girl continued to watch each other warily, both ready to counter the other's move, neither ready to make the first move.

"_Gemini_," a voice suddenly spoke into the communicator she was still wearing. "_It's Helios_. _I think our friends are backing off. If they leave, don't engage them. There's at least one unidentified hostile somewhere in the crowd – we don't want to endanger any human lives if we can avoid it."_

Chronos glanced around. He could see the guy with the spike weapon, hurrying away into the distance, limping heavily, presumably from injuries inflicted by Atlas. The swordsman was nowhere to be seen, and neither were Vertigo or the children. And now the girl in the catsuit was backing away from them, perhaps having decided this battle could not be won, or more likely satisfied that her original objective had already been carried out.

"So long, little girl," she mocked at Gemini. "We'll meet again."

Then she turned and began sprinting after the other enemy mutant, away from the scene, far too fast for either of them to hope to catch up. Gemini watched her go and then dropped to her knees, breathing heavily and crying in pain.

"Are you OK?" Chronos asked, his hand on her shoulder.

She nodded. Atlas appeared beside her and said softly, "It's all right, Ian, I've got her."

Chronos backed off, and Atlas knelt down beside Gemini, cuddling her gently.

"I thought I'd lost you..." he whispered to her. "Don't _do_ that to me!"

She gave a laugh through her tears, "I – I didn't even know I _could_ do that..."

Gemini's injuries had been fatal, and she had been mere seconds away from her death, when with her last reserves of strength she'd summoned a twin. She hadn't known if it would work. She had no idea if she could live on in her twin's body if her original body died. She had never tried it before. It was always the twins who had died before, their bodies dematerialising back into non-existence the moment they expired.

But this time it had been the other way round. In a new, uninjured duplicate body, she'd experienced the last few seconds of agony as her original body succumbed to the spike embedded in its lungs, and then she had watched herself die and her original body dematerialise into the air. She hadn't known it was possible. So her power wasn't just the ability to summon a respawning duplicate. She was actually dividing herself across two bodies, both of which could survive the other's destruction.

And now that the immediate danger had passed, she could finally pay attention to the pain and let herself cry and let herself deal with the terrible stress and strain that she had to undergo every time one of her bodies died.

"_Gemini_!" came a shriek from behind them. "I thought you were dead!"

Cassandra came hurrying to Gemini's side and knelt down to hug her friend. Helios stood beside Chronos, "Ian – you all right?"

"Yeah – looks like they're running."

Helios nodded, "They've already done what they came for. We'd better get out of here before the humans realise the people trying to kill them are gone, and start trying to kill _us_ again."

"What about the teachers? I mean, the other X-Men. They were fighting them to begin with, weren't they? What happened to them?"

"I don't know – I can't find any signs of them, and they aren't answering their communicators."

"What?" Chronos gasped in horror. "Are they OK? And where are Vertigo and the children?"

"I don't know that either. I just hope he can get them somewhere safe."


	23. Chapter 23

At the same time, but many miles away, Logan had finally caught up with the tracking signal in the car Pyro had taken. They were now well off the beaten track. Logan didn't know the area at all; he'd never had any reason to be here, and he wondered why Pyro had come this way. Where was he going? Was he bound for some secret hideaway, to hide from the X-Men, to lurk and plot his next move? Logan reckoned he wouldn't have been surprised if Pyro had any number of undisclosed hiding places all over the country.

Well, it wouldn't matter for much longer. It was almost over. The tracking signal had stopped moving some time ago, so the car was stationary. Either Pyro had stopped somewhere, or he was on foot. Either way, all Logan would need to do was sniff the bastard out. If it came down to a fight, which he sincerely hoped it would, Pyro wouldn't stand a chance.

He could see the car now. Parked up ahead, just off the side of the dirt track, half-hidden by a large rock. Pyro had to be somewhere around. There couldn't be anywhere around here he could have gone. If he did have some hideout, Logan knew it would only be a matter of time before he found it.

"Where are you, you son of a bitch?" he muttered, riding towards the stationary car.

His question was answered almost immediately as a sudden jet of flame shot through the air towards him. Logan instinctively swerved the bike to avoid it, but he swerved too far and the vehicle skidded across the ground, dragging him with it. He felt his clothes and skin tearing on the rough ground, and he gritted his teeth against the pain until the bike stopped sliding. Eventually it smashed into a rock; he pushed it away from him, and waited until his healing power mended the injuries he'd suffered. Where was Pyro? There was no sign of him. The fire had come out of nowhere. He hadn't even noticed which direction it had come from.

He sniffed the air. No good. The overpowering scent was the burning wreckage of his bike. Correction: Scott's bike. Still slightly stunned by the crash, it was a good few seconds before the obvious occurred to him.

"Oh man, put the fire out!" he gasped to himself. "I can't give that bastard even more fire to play with."

Grabbing the fire extinguisher from the back of the vehicle, he quickly doused the flames.

"Logan! What the hell are you doing here?"

Too late. He turned to see Pyro standing ten yards away from him. Wasting no time, he extended his claws and charged. Pyro reacted instantly, a jet of flame shooting from his lighter and forming a protective ring around him.

"That won't stop me and you know it," Logan snarled.

He continued his charge, bursting right through the circle of flame and swiping his claws towards the other man. Pyro directed another stream of fire, this one at the ground where he was standing, using the jet propulsion to lift himself from the ground and somersault over Logan's head.

"What are you going to do when the lighter fluid runs out?" Logan mocked him.

"I dunno, break open your bike's gas tank?" Pyro retorted.

They circled around each other, each waiting for the opportune moment. Logan quickly realised something that the other man was trying hard to conceal: Pyro was limping. When had he gotten injured?

"This ends here," Logan spat. "You and me, one on one. Nobody will get in our way. Nobody else knows where we are."

"You don't want to do this, Logan."

"Oh, come on – do you really think you can take me?"

"If I have to. What the hell is your problem?"

Losing his patience, Logan yelled, "Don't play innocent with me, you son of a bitch! I've seen the recording! I've seen what happened! I know exactly what you did!"

"What?" Pyro snapped. "Are you mad at me because I burned down part of your precious school?"

"Don't say another word, you murdering bastard! I'm here because you killed two people who never did you a moment's harm in your life!"

"Logan, you're delusional! Shut the hell up and get out of my sight!"

"Enough! I should have done this three years ago!"

Logan charged again, both sets of claws out and aimed directly at Pyro's throat. Pyro drew another circle of flame around himself, higher and hotter than the last one, and Logan knew better than to plough straight through it this time. He ducked to the ground and rolled underneath, where the fire was weakest, ignoring the burns which he suffered, knowing his healing would fix them quickly enough. He'd taken Pyro by surprise, and he kicked out at the flamer's legs, knocking him to the ground. Logan was on him in an instant, forcing the lighter from his grip, and pinning him to the ground, one claw on either side of Pyro's throat. The middle claw extended until it was just touching his neck.

"I could kill you now," he snarled. "But why make it quick? Why not make it agonising and slow like you made it for Melody and her little girl?"

Pyro's eyes widened and he snarled, "What the hell are you talking about, you delusional, sanctimonious asshole? I didn't – "

"Shut up! Not one more word! There isn't anything you could possibly say that will stop me from killing you!"

"Logan, you really are a stupid bastard! I don't give a damn whether you listen to me or not – but will you at least listen to _her_?"

"Huh?"

Pyro's eyes were looking behind him. That was where Logan heard a third voice coming from; a worried, female voice that cried, "Pyro! Hey, what are you doing? Get off him!"

Melody pushed Logan to one side and knelt beside Pyro, "Hey, are you all right?"

"I'll live – no thanks to our friend here," Pyro gasped, struggling into a sitting position.

Little Athena ran up to them and pointed to Logan, "Mommy, why is the wolf-man here?"

"Melody – what the hell is going on?" Logan cried.

"Oh, work it out," Pyro snapped. "Try using that mass of unthinking muscle that's lodged between your ears for once."

"Sshh," Melody hushed him. "Mr Logan, it's not what you think. I'll try to explain what happened…"

She recounted the events as she remembered them. She had grabbed hold of Athena just as the four attackers started advancing towards her once more, and Pyro summoned the fireball from his cigarette lighter. When he aimed it at Melody, she had genuinely believed her last moment had come. She had shut her eyes and prepared to die. But then seconds had passed, and she wasn't dead; in fact, she wasn't even burning. She had opened her eyes, to see the ring of fire around her and Athena – not harming them, but _protecting_ them. Then she had seen, through the flames, Pyro tackling the four invaders, being impaled in the leg by a metal spike, but fighting on regardless, driving the four of them away with an enormous wall of flame, screaming in agony as he pulled the spike from his leg, limping after the attackers to finally force them from the building, but never once dropping his concentration or losing control of the ring of flame that protected Melody and her daughter from harm.

"Then we had to run for it," she finished. "We didn't know when those guys would be back, and with Pyro injured, we just wanted to get to safety. We looked for that girl called Amnesia but we couldn't find her anywhere."

Logan looked at Pyro, "Why? Huh? Tell me why."

"Why I risked my life to save them? Gee, I dunno, maybe it's because you people are so completely incompetent that you regularly leave defenceless women and children alone when you're supposed to be protecting them."

"Uh huh. Since when do you care about human lives?"

"OK, number one, little kid here is a mutant, not a human. Number two, these are the only blood relatives my adopted daughter has in the entire world. Two things you might have taken into account before you jumped to your usual automatic conclusion that I'm out to kill the entire world."

For a moment neither man said anything, both continuing to glare at each other, but both of them realising the other was not an immediate threat. Logan retracted his claws. Pyro grabbed his lighter and put it away.

"So who were those guys who attacked?" Logan demanded. "If they don't work for you, who do they work for?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"At least one of them recognised you," said Melody. "Why did he call you 'Boss'?"

"Because he used to work for me," Pyro sighed. "A long, long time ago. Look, I don't have time to explain right now. Logan – where's Gemini? Is she safe?"

"Far as I know, she's still at the conference centre with the others."

"I want to go there now. If those guys came to the school, they'll go after your friends at the conference centre too."

Melody shook her head, "You shouldn't go anywhere until your leg is healed."

Something occurred to Logan, "Hey, wait a minute, if you're so innocent, why did you start attacking me as soon as I arrived?"

"I didn't know it was you. I thought it was the guys we were running from. Then when I realised it was you, I stopped attacking. If you recall."

"Perhaps so," Logan conceded. "Anyway, we can't hang around here. Something tells me if we head for the conference centre now, it'll be too late. Let's go to the school."

Melody nodded, "OK. Pyro, get in the car. I'll drive. Come on, Athena, time to go."

The little girl looked up from where she'd been kicking some wild flowers, and hurried after her mother.

* * *

Vertigo was glad to be able to stop driving at last. He had lost track of how long it had been since they'd left the conference centre, or how many miles they had travelled. They had arrived at the location Pyro had made him memorise over four years ago, one of the Brotherhood's old safe-houses, one which Vertigo himself had never actually been to before.

It wasn't visible from the road. Pyro had made sure of that. Vertigo parked the car out of sight behind some trees, then led the kids towards a small, squat building hidden behind a large rock formation. The door required a pass-code to be entered in a numeric keypad, a pass-code Pyro had forced him to burn deep into his memory. He typed it in without pausing, making a mental note to tell Accel what it was later. He didn't want all of the kids running in and out all the time, but it would probably be a good idea for at least one other person to know, and she was the oldest.

"OK," he said as they entered the safe-house. "For now I just want you to sit down and chill out. I don't know how long we'll be here for, but there are enough beds for all of us, and plenty of food. Everything will be fine and we'll be back at the school in no time."

With that said, he left the kids to explore, and sank down into a chair by the window and tried to think what to do next. He'd done what the X-Men would have wanted. He'd taken the children to safety. Whoever these attackers were, they wouldn't be able to find the safe-house unless someone told them where it was. And he was fairly confident Pyro could be trusted with that information.

The only thing he could really do, other than sit and wait, was try to contact Pyro, or the X-Men, and find out what the hell was going on, and what he should do next. Not that he particularly wanted to look to Cyclops for orders, but for the children's sake he was prepared to go along with what the X-Men thought was best for the youngsters. The little communication device that was still attached to his ear – he'd forgotten to remove it – would be no use. It was short range only. But he had a vague recollection that during the mission briefing from Shapeshifter – most of which Vertigo hadn't particularly listened to – there had been mention of an emergency long-range communication device hidden somewhere in the X-Men uniform he was still wearing. He'd hated putting the stupid uniform on and he still hated it, but he had to admit the stuff in the pockets was coming in handy.

Shrieking laughter suddenly erupted from wherever the children were. He was later to find out that the two boys had discovered an enormous spider in a dark corner somewhere in the building, and had flung it at one of the girls, whereupon much screaming had ensued. For now he tried to tune out the sound and concentrate on searching his uniform for any signs of a long range communicator. Maybe he should have paid more attention in the briefing, he thought sarcastically. The kids were still screaming and laughing and messing around, and it was really starting to get on his nerves. He was _this_ close to just marching over there and yelling at them to keep quiet for just ten seconds. But then, he knew they'd been cooped up in the car for however long without really complaining, and all of them had been terrified for their lives earlier. He knew they needed a chance to run around and burn their energy and get rid of their adrenaline. They'd tire themselves out eventually.

It took a couple of hours, but they eventually did. The novelty of being in a new place had finally worn off, and they'd soon realised there was actually very little to do in the safe-house. It was designed as an emergency stop-over, not a funhouse, he would later point out, but that didn't make any of them feel any better. However, it was about then that he finally figured out where his emergency communicator was.

"Well, of _course_ you keep it in the bottom of your left boot," he muttered sarcastically, cursing the X-Men. "That's the _first_ place any sane person would try…"

He tried calling Pyro, and got no response. He tried calling the school, and got no response. He vaguely remembered the frequencies of one or two of the X-Men's personal communicators, and called those, and got no response. Great. Absolutely damned fantastic. He had no idea how to get hold of anyone or what to do next.

Time passed as he continued to sit and stare out of the window, still harbouring lingering worries that he hadn't been able to throw off the pursuit, that somebody somewhere might still have been keeping track of them, and might even now be approaching the safe house. Eventually he told himself to knock it off, and went to find some food. The kids apparently hadn't eaten much, as very little was missing.

The house was silent and dark, an indication that the children had finally given into tiredness and boredom, and gone to bed of their own accord. He hadn't given them any sleeping arrangements, but there were three rooms with beds, and he assumed the boys were in one and the girls in another. If that wasn't the case, he really didn't care. As far as he was concerned they were too young for gender separation to matter. If they all wanted to be in one room to feel safer, he couldn't care less. He went to the bedroom nearest the front door and found it empty. Sinking down on one of the beds, he lay flat and stared at the ceiling in the darkness. What should he do next? How long was it safe to stay here? What should he do if something had happened to the X-Men and none of them could be reached? Where should he take the children?

There came a gentle knock on the bedroom door.

"Come in," he said.

Accel entered the room. She sat down beside him on the bed.

"What's up?" he asked. "I thought you guys had all gone to bed."

"The others have," she said. "I just wanted to know what we're doing next. Thanks for getting us here safe, by the way, I meant to say that earlier. But what do we do now?"

He shrugged, "Now we wait until we hear from Pyro or from the school."

"Can't we do anything?"

"Like what?"

"Like go after the bad guys."

Vertigo looked at her, "Don't be stupid, Accel. You saw how dangerous that guy was."

"You looked as if you could handle him."

"Yeah, maybe, but that's not the only thing I've got to worry about. I've got to keep looking after you guys as well, haven't I?"

"Hey, I can look after myself," she said, folding her arms and looking defiant.

"What about the others?"

She shrugged. Silence fell between them.

"Can I sleep there?" she said eventually, pointing to the other bed in the room.

"What's wrong with your own room?"

"There are only two beds, and Phoebe and Bibi are already asleep in them. And I'm not going in with the boys!"

"Fine. Whatever. Just don't snore."

She climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Then she turned and called across the darkened room, "Girls don't snore!"

"I can assure you, they do."

"How would you know?" she asked. "You've never slept with a girl – have you?"

"Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. Go to sleep."

She turned over and faced the wall, and Vertigo put his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Sleep normally came to him within seconds, whenever he wanted it to. He was used to being able to close his eyes and cat-nap at any time, to make sure he was fresh and rested for whatever was planned. But tonight…tonight it was different. Try as he might, he just couldn't relax. Obviously the fact that he had the kids' safety to worry about wasn't helping. As much as he tried to convince himself that the safe-house was – well, safe – he still wasn't comfortable with going to sleep and leaving the children vulnerable to unexpected attack.

He stared at the ceiling and tried to straighten out things in his mind. Why did he even care? They weren't his children. They were the X-Men's junior students. They would only grow up to be brainwashed into believing Xavier's stupid fantasies about co-existing with humans. There would come a time when they were no longer innocent children, but powerful young adults who were fully indoctrinated into the X-Men's lies. Should he allow that to happen? Was that any better, or less dangerous, than the threats they were facing now?

Vertigo sighed. Well, what was the alternative? How could he stop the X-Men from brainwashing the kids? He was in no position to take care of them and teach them. Pyro might have been able to, but he'd given up. Worthless coward that he was. Was there anybody else? Magneto was dead. Mystique had worked with the X-Men to defeat Foolkiller, and as far as Vertigo knew, she too had no interest in carrying on the fight any more. Was it really just him? Was he really the only one left who thought the Brotherhood's ideals were worth something? Of those he'd once called Brothers and Sisters, were they all now either turned traitor or dead? He ran through their names in his mind. There was nobody left who he thought it worth contacting to try and restart the old order of things.

So what did that mean for him? Should he give it up too? Was it really that important to carry on the fight? Why had he even cared in the first place? It was a question he'd asked himself many times over the past few years, and it was a question he always had the answer ready for. Vertigo had his own reasons for wanting to eradicate humanity and replace it with mutantkind. Nobody else knew what they were. He'd never told Pyro, and he'd never had any friends close enough to share it with. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as his mind went back to that one fateful day, seven years ago now, when his mother had died.

Accel mumbled something and turned over in her sleep. Vertigo was jerked out of his memories, and back to the situation at hand. He felt so restless. Actually, he felt the same way Accel did. He didn't want to be sitting here doing nothing, any more than she did. But then, it was easy for her to say that. She wasn't responsible for the safety of the others. He looked over at Accel, her dark hair splayed across her pillow, her small body rising and falling slowly. It was easy for her to go to sleep, contented in the knowledge that somebody older was there to make all the decisions and look after the younger ones. Vertigo had always hated responsibility. Being in charge of missions had never bothered him, provided the others present could take care of themselves and didn't expect him to do it for them. He really didn't much like having to look out for the safety of others.

But was there really any need for him to be here? It was a safe-house. The kids were safe here, weren't they? Was there any need for him to stay and watch over them? What good was it going to do? Couldn't he just – go? Couldn't he just leave them here? There was enough food to keep the kids going until Pyro or Cassandra or whoever thought to look for them here. Propping himself up on one elbow, Vertigo began to seriously consider the possibility. Sure, he wanted the kids to be safe. And here they were. Safe. He'd done his job and kept them from harm. Now he was free from that responsibility and could go do something else.

But what? He didn't want to go back to the school. If nobody else was interested in restarting the Brotherhood, then he didn't care about that either. He just wanted the X-Men to leave him the hell alone. Wait a minute. He sat upright in bed as something occurred to him. Then he silently slid out of bed and hurried out of the room.

He'd suddenly remembered something Pyro had told him. All of the safe-houses had a hidden compartment where a special cash card was stored, one that gave access to an emergency bank account Magneto had set up years ago for times of crisis. Now that nobody was left in the Brotherhood, that money was lying untouched in an account that, as far as Vertigo knew, nobody else had access to. He rushed to where he knew the secret compartment would be hidden, and began rifling through its contents. Within moments he had what he was looking for in his hand.

This was it. His ticket to a new life. No more dossing around at the X-Men's school, shirking responsibilities and blagging his way to another year of doing nothing while getting to stay for free. No more being brainwashed by their ridiculous notions of peace with the humans, or of being forced to participate in these stupid missions. No more having to spend time with the lame-ass Chronos, the spaced-out Atlas, or worst of all the unbearably arrogant, self-righteous, self-obsessed Gemini.

Glancing back through the doorway at the sleeping Accel, he tried to think of a good reason not to just walk out and go his own way. Nothing came to mind. It wasn't like he was abandoning the children in the middle of a warzone. They were as safe here as anywhere else he could take them. He could just get into the car, and then – hell, why not just drive? He had access to the money still sitting in what had been the Brotherhood's emergency cash supply. He had no reason to go back to the X-Men. They wanted to toss him out and make him get a job. He had no friends there he would miss, and plenty of people he never wanted to see again. Why not just head out and make his own way in the world?

_And the kids? _his conscience tried to rally.

They'd be fine. Pyro would find them and take them back to the school. Or Cassandra would, or that pretentious little slut Gemini. Or someone would, anyway. Yeah. Somebody would. Whatever. He didn't know who or when, but he didn't really care. Not his kids. Not his problem. Walking silently across the room, he eased open the front door, and headed for the car. Behind him, five sleeping children had no idea they were now alone.


	24. Chapter 24

Accel woke with a start, and sat up in sudden panic. Where was she? This wasn't the girls' dorm back at the school! And why had she gone to bed in her clothes instead of changing into her nightie? Her heart pounded for a second or two, then her tired mind caught up with reality. She wasn't at the school. She was in the Brotherhood's safe-house. She remembered what had happened the previous day. She remembered why they were here, she and her friends and Vertigo. Everything had gone crazy, people had tried to attack them, and now they were hiding until it was safe again.

She lay down again and tried to go back to sleep. She realised she didn't like this room. It smelled funny, and it was too quiet. She was used to the familiar smells of the younger female dormitory at school, and was used to hearing the sounds of the other girls as they slept. It helped her remember that at the school she was somewhere safe and she was with friends. That hadn't always been the case for Accel, not at the orphanage where she had grown up. She hadn't felt safe there, never at any time.

_Don't think about that_, she told herself, _you're never ever going back there, and you never ever have to see those disgusting sub-creatures ever again._

Her throat felt dry. She was thirsty. She was never normally thirsty in the middle of night, but then, the previous day had been crazy and weird and scary, so maybe her body was confused and out of sync with its normal routine. She decided to go and get a glass of water. The girl pushed her covers aside and stood. In the almost pitch darkness no sound came from Vertigo's bed, so she assumed he was asleep. Padding lightly across the room, so as not to wake him, she found the door to be already slightly ajar, and was able to slip through the gap without opening it any further. Walking to the bathroom, she found to her annoyance that there were no cups or glasses of any kind, so she cupped her hands together under the tap to gather water, and drank as much as she could while the rest spilled into the sink.

Wiping her mouth dry with her sleeve, she headed back to the bedroom. It was then that something struck her as strange. It was cold. She shivered, wondering why it was cold inside the house when it was summer and she was still fully dressed. Then she felt a cold draught of wind hit her face and she guessed someone had left a window open before going to bed. Well, she'd have to close it. Accel walked into the living area to see if she could find which one it was, but then she noticed something else. The hairs on her arms began to rise, and this wasn't from feeling cold. This was from panic. The front door to the safe-house was lying wide open! Vertigo hadn't left it open last night! He'd locked it and everything!

Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Accel turned in horror to see the sight that terrified every child's night-time imagination: a menacing shape, larger than she was, moving towards her in the darkness!

"Vertigo?" the ten year old gasped in panic. "Vertigo, is that you?"

There was no reply, but the dark shape larger than she was was still advancing. Overcome with fright, Accel couldn't stand it any longer. There was a light-switch just behind her head, and she swiped at it frantically. She got it on the second try, and light suddenly flooded the room.

Accel screamed in terror. Coming towards her was the man who'd tried to kill them yesterday! The guy with the robes and the swords who'd been on the motorbike! He'd found them!

"What are you doing here?" she gasped. "What do you want?"

His only reply was to pull his massive swords from within his robes, and hold them menacingly in front of him. Only his eyes were visible through the folds of cloth that covered his head, and they were both narrowed at the girl. Accel was terrified. Where was Vertigo? He had to still be asleep!

"Vertigo!" she yelled in the direction of the bedroom. "Vertigo? Wake up!"

Without waiting for him to appear, she ran towards the rooms where the other four children were asleep, and rapped noisily on both doors, screaming, "WAKE UP!"

The frightened little girl then turned back round to keep her eyes on the swordsman. He hadn't come any closer since she turned the lights on, and she wasn't sure why. She didn't want to take her eyes off him again. She'd seen yesterday how fast he could move.

"What's your name, little girl?" he suddenly asked.

Scared but determined not to show it, she answered, "Accel. What's yours?"

"My name's Dervish. Accel – that can't be a human name. Is that your mutant name?"

"Yeah."

"That's cute. Having a mutant name at your age. I bet you want to be an X-Man when you grow up."

The girl shrugged, "I dunno. Look, why are you here? What do you want?"

"I want to kill you."

"Why?" she snapped. "What have we done to you?"

"You pushed one of my friends out of a ten-story building. She can't die, but she said it was probably the most painful experience of her life. I'm here to return the favour. And your little friends, well, they'll just be casualties of war."

"Yeah, right," the ten year old scoffed, hoping desperately that she sounded more confident than she felt. "I'll tell you what, if you don't get out of here in the next ten seconds, we'll kick your ass!"

"Boy, I'd better get out," he said sarcastically. "I wouldn't want you to kick my ass. Or alternatively I could just kill you all in the next ten seconds. I'm probably fast enough."

"Fast enough?" said Accel angrily. "I'll show you who's fast enough!"

In a blur she sped across the room and smacked her fist into his face, staggering him backwards. He slashed both swords through the air, forcing her to jump backwards. Breathing hard, she stole a glance at the room where she and Vertigo had been sleeping. Where was he? Was he still asleep?

"Accel?" a sleepy voice came from behind her.

"Bibi!" Accel cried. "Wake up the others! And go and find Vertigo!"

Bibi's eyes widened and she gave a shriek of terror as she saw the sword mutant. Then she ran to Vertigo's room. The swordsman regained his balance and glared angrily at the little girls. Then there were more voices, and Icarus, Turtle and Phoebe appeared beside Accel.

"Adorable," the swordsman mocked. "More little lambs to the slaughter. Time to finish this!"

With that, he extended both arms and began to spin on the spot, whirling and whirling until he was little more than a blur. Then he started moving across the floor towards the children, still spinning, the two swords cutting through the air like helicopter rotors.

"Oh my gosh! Vertigo's not here!" came Bibi's distraught voice from the third bedroom.

"_What_?" Accel panicked. "He has to be! There's nowhere he could have gone!"

"Accel, what do we do?" Icarus yelled. "What do we do?"

But none of them had any chance to agree on what to do, as the whirling Dervish was already upon them, angling his blades downwards at the children's throats. Instinct kicked in and the terrified children reacted as one. Turtle grabbed Phoebe, turned his back on the attacker, and his shell exploded outwards to cover both of them from harm. Icarus leaped into the air and soared towards the ceiling, avoiding the blades by inches. Accel dropped to the floor, kicked out both of her feet with super-accelerated speed, and was rewarded with a cry of pain from the swordsman, who lost his coordination and also lost one of his blades, which went spinning through the air and embedded itself in the wall.

"Clever little lambs," he hissed furiously, as he retrieved his sword. "Clever, clever little children. Now I'm not going to just kill you, I'm going to make it hurt first."

"You're the one who's going to feel pain, pal, if you don't get out of here soon," Wolverine's voice suddenly snarled from behind him.

Relief flooded through Accel's terrified mind. Mr Logan was here! Mr Logan would sort out this guy in two seconds flat! She relaxed and waited to hear the familiar sound of Mr Logan's claws emerging from his knuckles. But it didn't come. Something was wrong. The invader had whirled round in surprise at hearing Wolverine's voice, and was now scanning the room, looking in all directions to see where it had come from. With a sinking heart, Accel suddenly realised what had happened. Mr Logan wasn't here at all! It was only Bibi copying his voice! The bad guy must have figured this out as well, as he went straight for the little Australian girl. Accel watched in horror as Bibi backed away from him, losing her balance and falling on to her back. Turtle suddenly appeared on the scene, swooping down on top of Bibi, his shell bursting out from the back of his neck to protect the two of them. The swords smacked uselessly against it, and Accel breathed easy once more.

Realising his blades had no effect on the shell, the swordsman tried to turn it over. Accel tried to stay focussed. At least Bibi's distraction had bought her a few seconds, and taken the bad guy's attention away from her. She had to take advantage of his momentary confusion. Rushing at him from behind, she leaped into the air and kicked him in the back of the head. Again he cried out in pain, and she felt a rush of satisfaction. But it only served to make him even more angry, and he immediately turned to face her, both swords slashing through the air as she rolled to the side to avoid them.

"_Accel_!" a sobbing Phoebe screamed, as she saw one of the blades avoid her friend's head by inches.

Accel chanced a glance at her friends, to check they were all right. Turtle was standing in front of Phoebe and Bibi, his arms held out protectively before them. She couldn't see Icarus! Where was he? Was he OK?

The swordsman suddenly gave an angry bellow, and looked above his head. Accel looked too. There was Icarus! He was hovering in mid-air, just above the man's head, throwing stuff at him. The man drew back his arm, and Accel knew he was about to throw a sword straight at the boy. She sprinted towards the swordsman and kicked at his feet with both of hers. His legs were thrown out from under him, and he landed heavily on the floor. His swords were trapped beneath his body, but that didn't stop him swinging his empty hand in a punch at Accel's face. She tried to dodge, couldn't, and was hit in the mouth. Screaming in agony, this time she couldn't stop the tears. Her vision blurred, her body overwhelmed with pain, she fell on to her back helplessly. His arm smacked into her chest, holding her down, and she could make out the vague shape of his other arm pointing a sword directly at her throat.

But then the pressure on her chest was suddenly lifted, the blurred shape in front of her disappeared, and she could hear Bibi cheering. Accel wiped the tears out of her eyes so she could see clearly, and was just able to catch a glimpse of the man as he ran frantically out of the front door, slamming it behind him.

"What happened?" Accel gasped.

Then she saw Phoebe slumped half-conscious, supported by Turtle.

"She went dizzy!" Bibi squealed in delight.

Of course! Phobia had used her power – somehow, whether accidentally or deliberately, it didn't matter – and produced some terrifying image in the attacker's mind that had sent the guy running for his life!

"So long, sucker!" Icarus was yelling, making a rude gesture at the door.

Bibi had rushed to kneel beside Accel, "Are you OK? He hit you really hard!"

"I'm fine! Help me up!"

Accel wasn't fine, but she struggled to her feet, ignoring the massive pain from her face and her chest. She grabbed Icarus, who was still making faces at the door, and yelled at him, "What are you doing?"

"We won! We beat him!"

"What, and you think he's just gonna go away?" she snapped. "As soon as he figures out what happened, he'll be back! We've gotta move!"

"Where?"

"We've gotta get to the car! Can Phoebe walk?"

"The car?" Bibi cried. "But we can't drive!"

"Pyro taught me how to drive!" Accel said quickly. "Help Phoebe! Come _on_!"

But it was already too late. The door was slammed open once more, and the swordsman stood in the doorway. His robes were dishevelled and his hands holding the swords were shaking, but there was no mistaking the anger in his eyes as he glared at the five children.

"Time to die," he rasped. "Stupid, stupid little lambs."

"Leave us _alone_!" Bibi shrieked.

Icarus and Turtle were struggling to support the barely-conscious Phoebe. Bibi was beyond terrified, completely losing control and screaming words that didn't make sense, her eyes flooding with tears and her body shaking violently. Accel panicked. There was nothing they could do! They'd used up all their tricks! The guy was going to kill them!

"Get in the bathroom!" she yelled in desperation. "We'll lock the door!"

The five of them ran to the bathroom, the bad guy right behind them, and Accel slammed the door in his face. With trembling hands she slid the lock into place, and ran to join the others in a terrified huddle against the far wall. They heard the _thud_ of metal on wood, and then a sword blade smashed clean through the bathroom door. Another slash, and the door fell to pieces entirely. Through the doorway strode the swordsman. Accel closed her eyes, and clutched her friends one last time.


	25. Chapter 25

After the enemy mutants had left, the X-Teens had been unable to find any sign of the senior X-Men, and had decided to return to the school. There was nothing to be gained by remaining at the conference centre. Helios had landed the jet in the hangar underneath the basketball court, and the five of them had hurried into the school's interior.

"What _happened_?" Chronos gasped, as they witnessed the extensive damage that had been caused by an explosion at the front entrance.

"The school must have come under attack!" said Helios. "While we were at the conference, the enemy must have struck here too!"

"Where is everybody?" Gemini cried. "Dad! Melody! Where are you?"

She ran towards the stairs, still calling for her foster father and her sister. Atlas watched her as she went, wondering if he should go after her, but then he noticed something else.

"Guys, look!" he yelled.

The three guys and Cassandra hurried to the staircase, where at around head height, an enormous metal spike was sticking out of the wall.

"That guy!" said Atlas. "The tall one with the weapon on his arm! These are the same as the things he fires!"

"He must have been here!" said Helios.

"Look, there's another one!" said Chronos, pointing to the bottom of the stairs.

He hurried down to retrieve the spike that was lying on the floor, and brought it to the others.

"Oh no," said Cassandra in horror.

"What?"

"There's blood on it! Look! Around the tip!"

Atlas was pointing at the wall, "There's blood spatter here too."

"Someone must have got hit! Someone might have been killed!"

"Who? Who was here?"

Helios answered, "Pyro was here, and Melody and her little girl."

"Amnesia was here," Cassandra added.

"And Scott and Storm came here with Logan. We haven't heard a word from them since they arrived – and I think now we know why."

Gemini suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, "I can't find them! I can't find my dad or my sister anywhere!"

"Look at this," said Helios, holding up the spike. "The school was attacked! The same people who attacked us at the conference! Somebody got hurt by this spike, and there's at least one more been fired!"

"_No_!" Gemini screamed. "Dad! Melody! Tell me it wasn't them! Please, Helios, tell me they're OK!"

"I don't know! Look, there's blood on this one – I'll take it to the science labs and try to do a DNA comparison."

"I'm coming with you!"

"No, wait – can you search the rest of the school and see if any of our friends are still here? Use your twin and you can search twice as much as any of us can!"

"OK," she said.

"I'll help you," said Atlas.

"What about me?" Chronos asked.

Helios looked at him, "Someone needs to go down to the base and check the security system. See if there are any recordings of what happened."

"I'm on it."

The five of them split up and hurried off in three different ways. Helios and Cassandra ran to the science labs, and quickly inserted a sample of the blood from the spike into the DNA analysis machine.

"If this blood belongs to anyone here at the school, we'll soon know," said Helios.

Cassandra frowned, "What, they have all of our DNA on file?"

"Yup. Partly for identification purposes, but also for our genetic studies classes."

"Oh yeah, of course. How long will the analysis take?"

"It's done. Let's see..."

The DNA from the blood sample analysed, Helios typed a sequence of commands into the computer interface, to initiate a comparison with the school's DNA files. This took only a matter of moments.

"OK," he said, then sighed. "Damn. No matches. But – ah-hah! It's human, not mutant."

"Huh?" said Cassandra in confusion. "There aren't any humans living here! Oh, wait – Melody. Gemini's sister. Hey, run the DNA past Gemini's sample, check for similarities."

"Good idea," he said, typing another sequence of commands.

"I didn't want to say this in front of Gemini," said Cassandra. "But if someone _was_ killed here, where's their body?"

"We didn't see any," Helios replied. "Hopefully that's a good sign. Maybe they got away."

The DNA analysis machine _ping_ed to indicate its latest comparison was complete. Helios clicked a button to bring up the result, and stared at the screen in confusion, "What? This doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?"

"This comparison report. According to what it says, Gemini's DNA is no match at all to this sample."

"OK, so it's not Melody."

"It has to be – like you said, no other humans have been here. Hang on, let me try something else."

"What?"

"I overheard Melody talking to Scott. Her little girl, Athena I think her name is, is a mutant. Melody wants to bring her to start school here in a few years."

"And?"

"And if he agreed, a sample of Athena's blood might have been taken. Let me check."

Cassandra waited impatiently while he typed into the machine's interface. She resisted the continual urge to look behind her to check there were no enemies approaching. If there were, she'd have a foreflash. There was no reason to look. There was no reason to...

"Bingo!" Helios exclaimed. "Blood sample for Athena Cartëasis, mutant, three years old. I'll run it past the one we found."

Two minutes later, the machine _ping_ed once more, and they both looked at the results.

"OK, we've got similarities," he said. "The sample from the spike has a 98% probability of being a maternal relation to Athena's sample."

"So it is Melody."

"So why isn't it similar to Gemini's?"

"Because she's a mutant and her DNA is totally different?"

"Dunno. Athena's isn't."

"Can you compare Athena with Gemini?"

"Yeah. Hang on."

A few moments later, he said, "No similarities there either. I don't know how much DNA an aunt should typically have in common with a niece, but there isn't anything in common between these two."

Cassandra was bewildered, "So what does this mean?"

"It means it _was_ Melody who was attacked here by the spike guy. But it also means that Gemini isn't Athena's aunt, and she isn't Melody's sister."


	26. Chapter 26

At that moment, Gemini's voice suddenly came through the communicators in their ears, "_It's Gemini. We've searched almost the entire place. No sign of anyone. But there's fire damage in one of the bedroom wings_!_ I think my dad must have done it_!_ I don't know why, he must have come under attack_! _Do you guys know what happened yet_?_"_

"_Chronos here_," came another voice. "_I've looked at the security recordings. I think I know what happened. You guys should come and take a look."_

"On our way," said Helios.

A few minutes later and the five of them were down in the underground base, in the security room, as Chronos played back the recording he had watched earlier. They saw Melody running for her life up the stairs as spikes were fired at her, one impaling her hand, but she was able to pull herself free.

"So it _was_ Melody who was attacked!" Gemini said in wide-eyed horror.

"That confirms what we found," said Cassandra. "The blood we found on the spike was human, and we compared it with Athena's – definite relation."

"Athena's? Why didn't you just compare it with mine?" asked Gemini.

Helios said smoothly, "Mother-daughter comparisons are far more reliable than sibling ones."

Any response Gemini might have made was quickly forgotten from her mind as she continued to watch the recording of her sister's flight. They saw Melody reach the top of the stairs, followed closely by four attackers, they saw her grab little Athena, and then they saw her approach Pyro. The recording cut out at the very second Pyro's fireball engulfed the two fleeing figures.

"Whoa!" Atlas gasped. "Rewind that! What on earth happened?"

"He killed them," said Chronos. "Just like that. In cold blood."

"He wouldn't do that!" Gemini snapped. "Play it again!"

"Look, I've already watched it five times to make sure. That's what happened."

She exploded, "My dad did _not_ just kill them! There must be some other explanation!"

Chronos lost his patience, and for once didn't care what Gemini thought, "Come on, it's not that hard to figure out! We all know he hates humans! We all know you guys would restart the Brotherhood at a moment's notice!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Gemini shouted. "Don't you _dare_ say anything about my dad! Who do you think you are?"

"Who do I think I am?" he yelled back. "Well, I think I'm the only one in this room, apart from Helios, who's never been part of a mutant terrorist organisation dedicated to destroying every human life on the planet!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," she spat. "You have _no idea_ what any of us were going through! Don't _ever_ pretend like you understand!"

"Guys!" Cassandra interrupted. "This doesn't help!"

Chronos turned his angry gaze on her, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot you had better things to be doing, like getting back to your old ways of killing humans!"

"Shut up, all of you!" Helios roared.

Gemini snapped at him, "Hey, who said you could give orders?"

Helios tried to keep his cool, "I'm the most senior X-Man here."

"Technically, you're the _only_ X-Man here," she retorted.

"And me!" said Cassandra indignantly. "Listen, can we stop arguing?"

"No, we _can't_!" Gemini cried heatedly. "Not while people are accusing my dad of murdering my sister and my niece!"

"Oh, come on, there's no other explanation!" Chronos shouted impatiently. "Look, I know you guys think Pyro is some sort of infallible Messiah figure – but just open your eyes for once!"

"_Shut up_!" Gemini shrieked. "Don't you ever, _ever_, talk about my dad that way!"

The two of them glared at each other furiously, until Atlas suddenly interrupted, "Who were those other guys?"

"What other guys?" Gemini snapped.

"The four guys going after your sister. I recognise at least two of them. Chronos, can you play it again?"

Chronos typed a few keys, and the recording started once more. The five of them watched, the tension between them still hot and simmering, but nevertheless temporarily prevented from reaching boiling point.

"Freeze it," said Atlas, as the four attackers appeared on screen. "Look. That's Scarab."

"Who's Scarab?" said Chronos.

"He used to be in the Brotherhood, when we were. And so did that guy beside him."

"That's Mole," said Cassandra. "Scarab and Mole. I remember them. They left immediately after we destroyed the Horsemen and started living here."

"Yeah, they were creeps," said Gemini.

"They were all right," Atlas said.

"Easy for you to say – you didn't have them watching you and lusting after you twenty four hours a day."

Helios threw up his hands, "But what were they doing here? Why are they attacking us? And who are those other two?"

"Well, that's Mr Spikes," said Chronos, pointing to the tall figure on screen with the strange weapon on his arm. "We fought him just earlier. We know what he can do."

"Why are Scarab and Mole working with these people?" said Cassandra. "They never liked the X-Men, but why are they coming after us now? What do they _want_?"

"They're some mutant supremacist group," said Gemini. "That's the way they were talking earlier."

"Who's the fourth?" said Atlas, pointing at the screen, where a young man with dark glasses was standing alongside Scarab, Mole and 'Mr Spikes'.

"Dunno. Never seen him before."

Helios frowned, "Hold on – I recognise him. I saw him today!"

"Did you?" Cassandra asked. "When? I don't remember him."

"He was the one chucking grenades at us. He disappeared into the crowd before we could follow him. He must have run with the others."

"So," said Chronos, folding his arms and looking at Gemini. "A mutant supremacist group, determined to destroy peace between mutants and humans, and now attacking the X-Men. And who's right in middle of it? Pyro."

"No!" she said angrily, shaking her head. "He has _nothing_ to do with this! OK, he doesn't like humans much, and yes, he fought the X-Men in the past, but that's the point: _in the past_. He doesn't want to fight any more. He – he just wants to be left alone, and to help me rebuild my life."

"All right, then explain to me what's going on in that video. What's he doing? Why is he throwing fire at a defenceless woman and child?"

"He was saving our lives," came a voice from the doorway.

They all whirled round in surprise.

"_Melody_!" Gemini shrieked.

She ran to the door and flung her arms round the woman, "Oh, I'm so glad you're all right! What happened? Where were you?"

Behind her stood Logan and Pyro. Relief spread visibly across Helios' face when he saw them, "Blimey, Logan, am I glad to see you..."

"_Dad_!" an overjoyed Gemini cried, releasing Melody and flinging herself towards Pyro, squeezing him as hard as she could.

Relief was on Pyro's face too as he cuddled his adopted daughter, his fears that harm had come to her at the conference centre proving to be unfounded.

"Helios. Sit-rep. Now," Logan growled.

"We were attacked," said Helios. "Some group of mutant supremacists targeted the conference, and here too. We fought them at the conference but they got away."

"Where are Rogue and the others?"

"We don't know. There was no sign of them."

"Where are the children? And Vertigo?"

"He got them away to safety – we think. We've heard nothing from him."

Logan bit back a curse. Things were far worse than he had expected.

"Do we know who we're dealing with?" he asked.

"Some of them. We were just looking at this recording. We've identified Scarab and Mole, who used to be in the Brotherhood."

"Oh, I remember them," Logan said grimly. "I never forget a scumbag."

"Then there are others whose names we don't know," said Helios. "This tall guy who fires spikes. This guy in the dark glasses who was throwing grenades – we don't know what his powers are."

"And two others we fought at the conference," said Atlas. "A whirling guy with swords, and a female assassin – the one you fought at the hotel."

"The one who just didn't know how to die," Logan snarled. "Is that all?"

"All that we know of. But that's all we have to go on. We have no names and very little idea of what their powers could be."

A voice said, "Oh, I can help you there. I know all of them."

Everyone turned to look at Pyro.

"Oh yeah?" Logan said, his suspicions rising once more despite what had happened earlier. "And just how do you know these people?"

"Well, Scarab and Mole used to work for me. We all know them. And these others are all people I recognise. I tried to recruit them as young mutants to join the Brotherhood."

"The Brotherhood?" Melody gasped. "The mutant terrorist organisation? The one that started the Plague? _You _were in the Brotherhood?"

He looked at her, and with a sinking heart suddenly realised Melody had no idea that Pyro and Gemini were two of the people most directly responsible for her husband's death.

"Long story," he said quickly. "Which we don't have time for right now. I'll explain another time. But anyway – yeah, these are all people I tried to recruit years ago."

"They turned you down?" Logan smirked.

"Or I reconsidered. Anyway, I can tell you about each of them."

"Go ahead."

Pyro pointed at the screen, "OK. Spike guy here – his name's Sagittarius. His arm has mutated into some sort of weapon. He can fire two-foot-long metal spikes at a distance of up to a hundred feet."

"I think we're all familiar with what he can do, thank you very much."

"Next – dark glasses guy. He calls himself Sonar Pulse. The dark glasses are because he doesn't have any eyes."

"Huh?" someone said.

"He doesn't need them. His sense of hearing is so powerful he can use echo-location to get a perfect image of his surroundings for a mile radius. Makes him the perfect ballistics expert."

"Hence the grenades," Helios muttered.

"Your sword guy sounds like a guy I tried to recruit shortly after Magneto died. His real name was something in Arabic I can't remember, but he preferred to be known as Dervish. His swords are reinforced with adamantium – I've no idea where he got hold of them, but he's probably the most dangerous sword fighter in the world. He can spin fast enough to cut through six feet of solid steel in seconds."

"How the hell do you know all this?" asked an astonished Chronos.

Pyro looked at him and raised his eyebrows, "I did my homework on the people I tried to recruit. Anyway, that's all of them. Now you know as much as I know."

"Wait a minute, you missed one out," said Logan. "The assassin girl, in the black cat-suit, the one who was immune to my claws and apparently also to falling out of a building."

Pyro shrugged, "Can't help you there. Never met her or seen her before in my life."


	27. Chapter 27

Accel heard the sound of the swordsman's footsteps as he ran across the tiled bathroom floor towards them. As she did so, suddenly she felt differently. A moment ago she had been ready to give up and resign herself to being killed. There was nothing any of them could do. They'd tried everything they could. They'd tried using their powers. It just wasn't enough – they were too young, too small, too weak – he was older, bigger and stronger, and now he was going to have his way and kill them.

Something inside Accel changed. She had felt this way before. Nearly every day of her life until the age of seven years old, she had felt this way. Being small. Being weak. Being under attack, by people who were older, bigger and stronger, whom she could do nothing to protect herself from, as much as she tried to use her powers. People who wanted to hurt her, to humiliate her, to make her cry, to amuse themselves by tormenting her.

Sub-creatures. Worthless, disgusting, undeserving of life. Scum. _Humans_. She remembered. She remembered everything at the orphanage, the memories of being picked on and bullied, beaten up and forced to eat off the floor, having her head forced down the toilet and her sleep disturbed at all times of night. How she had longed to be able to do something, anything, to protect herself. How she had been too scared to do anything but run away and try to hide. How she had wanted to just scream and scream and scream.

She opened her eyes. As the swordsman ran towards them, both blades swooping down through the air, Accel screamed. Every last drop of anger, hate, bitterness and resentment that her memories could produce, was poured into one shriek of fury.

At the same moment, she felt herself running towards him, fuelled by pure anger, and suddenly he was no longer advancing forwards, but being driven back through the doorway he had just smashed. Accel was still screaming, still giving vent to her overpowering rage, and moving faster and faster, propelling the swordsman back into the main room of the house, and towards the open front door. Just outside the front door stood a single figure.

Vertigo.

Still accelerating, still forcing the man backwards, still forcing out the single long, enraged shriek she had started only seconds ago, Accel pushed with all of her strength, and the swordsman was flung headlong with the force of her momentum. He landed on his back, utterly shocked and bewildered, both of his swords dropping from his hands. Vertigo stood over him calmly for a second. Then he swooped down and drove his fist directly into the enemy mutant's throat. The swordsman jolted violently, and then lay still.

"Vertigo! Is he dead?"

The other four children appeared beside Accel, all eight of their eyes fixed intently on the fallen enemy, ready to run again the second he got up.

"Yup," said Vertigo. "Dead as a human."

Bibi ran towards Vertigo, and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his chest, still frightened and desperate for a reassuring cuddle.

"Quit it!" he snapped at the little girl, pushing her away. "We don't have time! Get in the car! All of you!"

Phoebe put her arm round the crying Bibi and tried to speak comforting words in her ear as Vertigo shoved them roughly out of the door. The two boys hurried after them. Only Vertigo and Accel were left inside the safe house. The ten year old was still breathing hard, her heart beating faster than she could ever remember, all of her muscles bunched, her fists clenched tightly.

"Accel?"

She looked up at him.

"What was that?" said Vertigo. "I've never seen you do that before."

"I don't know..." the girl panted breathlessly. "I really don't know...I just felt – "

But he shook his head, "Forget it, I don't care. Just get in the car."

She relaxed. Her fists uncurled and her muscles untightened It was OK. They were OK. The guy was dead. What had happened? What had she just done? She didn't know. She had no idea. One moment she'd been crouched down, resigned to her fate, expecting nothing but death. The next moment it was as if a red-hot fire had suddenly exploded in her brain and blazed throughout her entire body. In the space of a few seconds, one scream, she'd forced the guy out of the building, away from her friends, so Vertigo could kill him. How had she done _that_? She couldn't have done that normally – could she? Accel didn't know. The anger, the screaming, imagining all the things she had wanted to do to the humans she had grown up with, thoughts of anger and hate and revenge, somehow it had given her new energy, new strength, new power, new confidence, pushing her beyond what she had thought were her limits.

"Move!" Vertigo barked at her, grabbing her arm and forcing her out of the door.

"All right!" she snapped back. "Look, you can't push us around like that! You're going to hurt Bibi! She's only eight!"

"Remind me how old you are again?" he retorted. "That's right – barely into double figures! So why don't you just shut up and do what you're told?"

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded. "Why are you so angry with us? We nearly died in there! And where the _bloody_ _hell_ were you?"

Vertigo smacked Accel in the face, "When I want you to speak, I'll ask you! Get in the car!"

Caught by surprise, the girl had had no chance to avoid the blow. Flinching and crying out in pain, she told herself it didn't hurt, but her face was still sore from where Dervish had hit her a few minutes ago, and it was only with quite an effort she held back her tears and glared at Vertigo angrily as they walked towards the car. The other children had seen what happened, and all of them sat in a frightened silence as Vertigo started the engine and they began to pull away from the house. Vertigo himself kept his attention entirely fixed on the road ahead, trying frantically not to let his face betray the wild maelstrom of emotions that was unfolding inside his head.

He'd left them. He had driven off and abandoned the children, thinking only of the new life he was going to begin with the money from Magneto's emergency cash supply. All the while his conscience had been screaming at him to turn round, to go back, to stay with the children, to put their safety ahead of his own desires, but he had silenced it by telling himself that they were safe, nobody could possibly find them, and they didn't need him any more.

Then he'd seen the swordsman pass him on the other side of the road, back on his motorcycle or perhaps a new one he'd acquired, speeding in the direction of the safe house. Somehow, impossibly, the enemy had known where they were, and was on his way. And so Vertigo had turned around. He knew he hadn't a hope of catching the guy up, and could only hope the kids could stay alive long enough until Vertigo got there. And they had. Accel had done something, something even she didn't know what it was, and the five of them, by some sort of miracle, were all unhurt.

But now both sides of Vertigo's mind were screaming at him for being an idiot. His desire for a new life, on his own with more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime, was wrecked. Now he was back with these stupid children that the stupid X-Men wanted him to look after until heaven knew when. And on the other hand, his conscience was tearing him apart for abandoning them in the first place. What was _wrong_ with him? If he hadn't gotten there when he did, if Accel hadn't done whatever it was she'd done, he would have had five dead children's blood on his hands. He'd just yelled at the children to shut up, but it was really the two sides of his own mind he wanted to silence.

What should he do now? Where were they even going? He had no idea. He was just driving randomly, following his instinct. Getting away from the safe house was the first priority. The sword mutant had known it was there, and for all Vertigo knew the guy's friends might have been five minutes away from piling in alongside him. He had to get the children away, and find them somewhere that was actually safe.

But where? The school wasn't safe any more. The conference centre was out of the question. The safe house hadn't lived up to its name. There were others, but not for hundreds of miles, and there was every possibility they had been compromised too.

So what then? He still had the cash card, so in theory they could go anywhere. But he had no intention of dragging five irritating children around with him wherever he went. There had to be somewhere he could take them, somewhere he could leave them, somebody else he could put in charge of them. He could drop them off at a school or an orphanage, but doing that would attract unwanted attention. He wanted to disappear afterwards.

Wait! Two of the X-Men still lived over in England. Or was it Scotland? He hadn't the slightest idea or interest in the geography of his own country, let alone foreign ones. OK, well, Britain. Oculus and Gaia lived there. They'd retired from "active duty" and would probably be happy to take the children off his hands, plus they were strong enough to protect them. Vertigo felt relieved, a little. He had a plan. He could satisfy both halves of his mind. He could send the children to Oculus and Gaia, where they'd be safe. And since they would no longer be his problem, he could then disappear and start his new life.

It was a good plan. But Vertigo had no way of knowing that, before he would even have a chance to put it in motion, he would suddenly have to face up to something he'd been refusing to face up to for the last nine years. His old life, before he had joined the Brotherhood, before he had even met Pyro or the others. It all went back to the day his mother had died.


	28. Chapter 28

Accel refused to look at Vertigo as they continued to drive away from the safe house. She couldn't understand why he was acting like such a creep. She couldn't believe he had hit her! What had she done? _He_ was the one who had disappeared! Where had he been? Why hadn't he been there when Dervish first arrived? She and the others could have died while he was gone! She didn't really know who the bad guys were, but whatever was going on just now was definitely _not_ her fault, nor her friends. Why then were they the ones getting yelled at and smacked about?

She was still confused and, if she were honest, a little scared about what she had done just then. She had never done anything like that before. Sure, she could hold her own against Chris and Mr Logan at school, but then she knew they weren't really fighting with their full strength or actually trying to hurt her. She had never actually had a proper fight with a full grown adult mutant before, not one who was fighting with no holds barred and _was_ trying to hurt her. Something, she didn't really understand what, had enabled her to rise above her normal level and unleash the kind of power that wasn't really supposed to be possible for ten year olds.

She had just felt so _angry_. It was three years since she had left the orphanage, but sometimes she still slipped back into her nightmarish memories, and her thoughts and emotions went completely out of control. But she had never known it to 'explode' that way before, and make her more powerful. And she realised that was what it had felt like. She _had_ felt powerful. Powerful enough to win any fight. Powerful enough to do anything. Powerful enough that she was indestructible. It didn't make sense, but that was how it had felt. What did it mean? She didn't know. She wanted to talk to somebody about it, somebody older, but Vertigo had made it clear he didn't want to talk, and besides he was a guy. She wanted to talk to an older girl or a woman about it. They would understand better. Guys wouldn't have a clue.

Accel glanced round behind her at the other four youngsters in the back seat. All of them were sleeping. It was still only the early hours of the morning, and they were just catching up on the sleep that had been disturbed by Dervish's intrusion. Accel couldn't sleep. She didn't want to. She wasn't tired. She was still too angry and feeling as if she was on fire.

She looked out of the front window. Dawn was breaking outside. Where were they _going_? Vertigo hadn't said a word since they'd left the house, and she wasn't going to break the silence before he did – her face was still sore from Dervish's punch, and she didn't want to get smacked there again. Up until now she had assumed Vertigo knew what he was doing – he was an adult from her school and she had instinctively trusted him – but now...now she was starting to wonder. He hadn't been there when Dervish attacked; he was pushing them around far too roughly; and he'd hit her. He wasn't acting like the teachers at the school. He was acting more like the people who'd been in charge of her at the orphanage.

Ahead of them, a sign at the side of the road read: **Thomsonville, 2 miles**. Accel sighed. She had no idea where they were or where they were going. She wasn't comfortable with not knowing, because she wasn't sure she could trust Vertigo any more. What if he was taking them somewhere horrible? Well, the worst place on earth, as far as she was concerned, was the Raydale Orphanage where she had grown up. But that was thousands of miles across the ocean in Edinburgh, so he wasn't taking them there.

The silence inside the car was suddenly broken by the last sound on earth she had expected to hear. In astonishment she broke her own personal vow, and looked over at Vertigo. Was he _crying_? At first she thought she'd imagined it – maybe he'd just done a weird cough or something – but as she looked, she could see that he was definitely crying.

"Are you – " she started to say, when suddenly the car swerved violently off the road and down the exit that was signed for **Thomsonville**.

"Hey, be careful!" she said. "They haven't got any seatbelts on back there!"

"Shut up!" Vertigo snapped, his voice shaking just a little, wiping a tear away with the back of his hand.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me! For once just keep your stupid little mouth shut!"

For a second his eyes met hers, and she felt her pulse quicken. The look in his eyes was not that of an upset friend or of an adult who was angry with her. It was something altogether different and frightening. It was something very much like the look that the swordsman Dervish had given her when he said he was going to kill her. Or the woman in the cat suit Accel had pushed out of the window at the hotel. Accel didn't know where they were going or what was going on, and she definitely didn't trust Vertigo at all now.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the town of Thomsonville, population 9,300, and Vertigo was getting scarier all the time. His hands were visibly shaking on the wheel. He'd stopped crying, but had started muttering under his breath, which was actually more scary in a way. She couldn't make out what he was saying, but she occasionally caught the odd word, many of which were words she had only ever heard Vertigo say and which would each have earned her a very long detention at school.

As the car left the main street of the town, and headed into a residential district, Accel's feeling of unease and discomfort continued to grow. Where was he taking them? Was there another safe-house here? If there was, she didn't think it would be a very good one – there were far too many people around. Maybe they were stopping for food. She felt a little more positive with that idea. It made sense. She _was_ hungry. But that wouldn't explain why Vertigo was crying.

The car stopped, braking sharply to a halt. Vertigo's hands were still shaking as he continued to grip the wheel. Accel looked out of her window to see where they were. It was just an ordinary residential street, with modest semi-detached houses and small, nicely-kept gardens. Her heart sank. There weren't any restaurants or shops here – they weren't stopping for food. She looked at Vertigo, and again felt frightened at the way he looked back at her. She could tell it was taking him a lot of effort to keep his voice steady as he said, "I'm getting out to talk to someone. You stay in the car. Or don't, I don't care. Do whatever the hell you want. Just don't follow me."

She swallowed nervously, and glanced at her four friends in the back seat. None of them had been woken by the car's sudden stop. She wasn't sure if she should wake them now. She wasn't sure about anything. She didn't know what to do or what to say. In the end she said nothing, and Vertigo opened his door to get out of the car. Accel didn't feel safe at all any more. She wished Cassie was here, or Gemini, or Pyro, somebody she could trust to look after them properly.

Vertigo slammed the car door and strode off without a backward glance. Stupid children. Stupid, annoying little brats. He found himself hoping that when he returned to the car, they wouldn't be there, they would have disappeared. Then they would be somebody else's problem. Stupid, spoiled, useless little wastes of space. He'd never been pampered and cosseted the way these kids were at the X-Men's school. He'd have loved to see how they would survive if suddenly cast adrift in the real world.

Thoughts of his own childhood were whirling around inside his mind now, bombarding him and driving him crazy. His hands were shaking, but he had managed to stop the tears. These were memories he had kept bottled up and shared with nobody over the last nine years. He could ignore them and keep them subdued most of the time. He'd even had an outlet for release of the stress when he was in the Brotherhood, wiping out the worthless human race.

But now those feelings were overwhelming him completely and there was nothing he could do to hold them back. Because Thomsonville was the town where he had grown up, and the house he was standing in front of now was the house he had been born in and lived for the first ten years of his life.


	29. Chapter 29

Vertigo raised his hand to knock on the front door. Then he stopped. Why knock? This was his damn house! He didn't know who was living in it now, and he didn't know what had happened to it since he'd been carted off to the orphanage after his parents died. He didn't care. Since seeing the sign for Thomsonville, he had been drawn here like a magnet, and couldn't have turned back if he'd tried.

He didn't knock. He grabbed the door handle and found it to be unlocked. Kicking the door open, he strode inside. Then he stopped. The house was just as he remembered it. Not the decorations, not the furniture – that was all totally different – but the layout, the lighting, and the smell. The smell of his mother. Only she had been dead for longer than nine years, so it wasn't the smell of her, but it was the smell he had always associated with her. Vertigo walked down the hallway and threw open the door to the living room.

This was it. This was the room where his mother had died. He remembered kneeling over her body, cuddling her, crying to her, shaking her, asking her why she couldn't get up. It had taken him some time to realise and accept she was gone. And the man standing over her with the bloodied baseball bat had told him that if he ever told anyone what happened, he'd kill him too. And Vertigo had obeyed the man. Because the man had been his father.

They hadn't been married. He had been about forty years older than she was. From what little he remembered, and from what he'd been able to piece together from newspaper archives, Vertigo had figured out what happened. His father had moved here after losing his first wife and his job in the same month, and had turned to drink. At some point he'd met another woman a few years younger than he was, and married for the second time. He had no children, but she had one, a daughter who was seven years old.

At some point his second wife had died too. Vertigo hadn't been able to find out how. But as the man's step-daughter had grown older she had looked more and more like her mother, until the man, in his drunken confusion, had taken her to bed as if she _was_ her mother. At the age of thirteen, she was pregnant, and Vertigo was born. As a boy he hadn't known any of this, or even thought it strange that his father was some forty years older than his mother, who was little more than a child herself.

The day his mother had died was the day his parents found out about him, about his mutation. His father had been unable to accept it. The mutant gene came from the father, every scientist knew that, but the man had been unable to accept that his genes had produced a mutant child. He had convinced himself that the girl had gotten pregnant by some other means, that she had been sleeping with somebody else.

Vertigo was burning inside with rage as he remembered that day. How could his mother have been sleeping with someone? She was thirteen! He was the one who had done wrong! How could he say it was her fault? It was his fault, his mad lust, his inability to control himself! And in his confusion and his anger and his drunken rage, Vertigo's father had taken the baseball bat, not for the first time, and beaten his mother until she was bruised and bleeding on the ground. Only this time she hadn't survived.

Pretentious little slut. Those were the words he'd used. Over and over again, pretentious little slut, pretentious little slut. The pure, innocent thirteen year old girl he had taken advantage of and forced against her will, who had through no fault of her own conceived a mutant child. The mother who had loved and adored and cared for her young son, despite her own youth and her inexperience and the complete lack of care showed to her by others. Vertigo's mother, the only person who had ever loved him. Killed before his eyes when she was just twenty one.

Two years later, Vertigo had killed his father. Not with a baseball bat, not with a gun, which by then was the old drunk's new weapon of choice, but with something else. His mutation. His power. The thing that set him apart from the filthy, worthless human who'd created him and then blamed the mutation on his mother. Vertigo's mother had died because a human couldn't accept having a mutant son. And Vertigo knew that all humans were exactly the same. Nobody had been there to protect his mother. All humans wanted the same thing. All humans were equally to blame and responsible for her death. And all humans would die.

"Who are you?"

Vertigo was suddenly jolted back into reality by the small boy standing in front of him. The youngster, maybe seven years old, looked up at him, then called, "Grandpa, there's a strange man in the house!"

A moment or two later a short, balding man in his sixties appeared behind the boy.

"Can I help you, son?" he asked.

"Sure," said Vertigo. "You can die."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Die!" he yelled. "All of you! All of you are the same! All of you would have killed her just like he did! All of you can die!"

The old man wasn't intimidated, and he barked, "Young man, I don't know who you think you are, but this is my house! If you don't start making sense, I'm going to have to ask you to leave!"

"I'll leave," said Vertigo. "Don't worry about that. What I'm here to do won't take long."

With a sudden spinning kick he sent the old man flying across the room.

"Grandpa!" the horrified child screamed.

The old man cried out in pain as he hit the floor, and the child ran to him. Vertigo was about to walk over and finish them off, when a _click_ came from behind his head.

"Get out of here," a frightened female voice said. "Get out of our house now!"

Vertigo turned, to see an old woman, presumably the grandmother, holding a small pistol in both hands. Her hands were shaking and there was no way she could possibly hit a target even at this short range. Vertigo feinted to one side, then kicked the gun out of her hands, sending it looping up into the air. He leaped into the air and stretched out his hand to catch it, then landed on both feet with cat-like grace, swivelling round to point the weapon at the stricken grandfather. The slick manoeuvre had taken less than a second.

"Don't hurt him! Don't hurt my grandpa!"

"Billy, get out of here! Run! Go to your mom's! Tell her to call the police!"

Vertigo ignored the frightened grandmother and child as he walked over to the man, pointed the gun at his head, and pulled the trigger.

Accel kicked the gun out of his hand, the bullet impacting harmlessly into the wall, and then stood protectively in front of the terrified humans.

"What the hell are you _doing_?" she screamed.

With a roar of fury, Vertigo lashed out at her, but she dodged to one side, and faced him once more. Breathing heavily, he snarled at her, "You stupid, worthless little brat! This has nothing to do with you!"

"This has everything to do with me!" she shouted. "You're supposed to be protecting me and my friends, not killing random people!"

"They're human! They deserve to die!"

"What? Why?"

"Because of what they've done!" Vertigo yelled. "What all humans do! You of all people should understand that!"

"Maybe so, but I only want to go after the people who actually hurt me! Not random people who have never done anything to me!"

"They're all the same!"

"How do you know?"

He lost his patience completely, "Because I've been alive a few more than ten years, I've seen it for myself, and I'm not brainwashed into the lies they teach you at that ridiculous school! Get out of my sight! _Pretentious_ _little_ _slut_!"

Disbelief crossed Accel's face, and her mouth dropped open, "_What _did you call me?"

"You know what you are!"

"Vertigo, I'm ten years old!"

"You're all the same! Sure, you're a sweet little angel now, but in a few years, you'll be just like the rest of them!"

"What are you _talking_ about?"

"My mother was a _saint_!" he screamed. "And you, all of you, little sluts, every girl I know, you're all the same! She died because he thought she was what you are!"

Confused, frightened and overwhelmed, Accel was taken completely by surprise as Vertigo suddenly lunged at her, grabbing her around the throat and forcing her against the wall. She fought against his grip, but he was too strong, and she couldn't breathe. She tried to kick him, but without any acceleration behind it her kick had no effect. He squeezed her neck even tighter, and she felt herself suffocating.

But Vertigo wasn't the only one with painful memories. As her vision swam before her eyes, Accel remembered. This had happened before. Only then it hadn't been a young man choking her with his hands, but a group of older girls at the orphanage holding her head under the water in the shower room, bringing her almost to the point of drowning and then pulling her out, only to push her back in again a second later. Accel knew what it was like to almost suffocate. But now she also knew how to fight back.

Her anger exploded inside her again, and with strength she had never known before, she ripped Vertigo's hands away from her throat, then spun to kick him away from her. He staggered backwards, and she inhaled, then screamed. All of her anger, all of her painful memories, all of her fury at the injustices done to her, burned through her body like a raging volcano, and she advanced towards him.

Vertigo jabbed his fist viciously towards her head, but Accel parried the blow and swivelled round to drive her elbow into his neck. He had seen it coming, and ducked out of the way, then retaliated with a kick aimed at her face. She dropped to the ground, rolled over to avoid it, then flipped back upright to face him once more. The three humans, now in a terrified huddle, could only watch as the ten year old girl fought to protect them from the nineteen year old man.

"You're just a stupid little girl!" Vertigo snapped her. "Do you really think you can stand up to me? I taught you everything you know about fighting!"

Accel spat back, "I learned maybe a quarter of what I know from you! Chris and Mr Logan and Mr Wagner taught me the rest!"

"Well, none of them are here to protect you now! If you don't get out of my way right this second, I promise I _will_ kill you!"

Breathing hard, her anger still burning, Accel shook her head, "Vertigo – we're not friends any more."

To her surprise, he laughed, "Is that it? Is that the worst thing you can think of to say? You pathetic little baby. Quit embarrassing yourself before you wet your panties!"

Accel screamed and charged right at him. Vertigo had made a mistake – he hadn't taken her seriously – and he was completely unable to react as she covered the distance between them in a fraction of a second and drove him hard into the wall behind him. The young man screamed in pain as he felt one of his ribs cracking under the impact.

Still screaming with fury, Accel gave him no respite, smashing a super-accelerated fist into his jaw, then leaping into the air, flipping head over heels and kicking him hard in the face. He gasped and spit up blood, part of one of his teeth landing on the floor.

"Woohoo!" the little human boy yelled excitedly. "You go, girl!"

If Vertigo hadn't been taking the girl seriously before, he definitely was now. There was only one thought in his mind now: revenge. A devastating spinning kick that would have killed even the strongest man was aimed directly at Accel's head, and only her accelerated reflexes enabled her to swivel out of the way, losing her balance as she did so. Vertigo leaped into the air and slammed both feet into the floor where her neck was, or where her neck had been a quarter of a second ago. Smashing his fist towards her face, missing her by inches as she twisted aside, he drove her closer and closer to the corner of the room. Grabbing a chair and swinging it in her direction, Vertigo gave a laugh of triumph and satisfaction as he realised he had the little girl cornered. Accel gave a frightened gasp as she realised she was trapped without nowhere left to run to. Vertigo drew back his fist to slam into her throat.

Before he could do so, she had given another of her ear-splitting screams and was charging towards him once again. He hadn't left her enough room to pick up any momentum, but it was enough to knock him on to his back, and again her little fist smashed into his face. Enraged, he grabbed at her arm, with the intention of snapping the bone in half, but she had already spun away and kicked him in the ribs. She missed the one he had cracked earlier, and Vertigo flipped back upright, facing the child.

"You're a fast learner," he growled at her, wiping away blood from his mouth. "Pity you won't survive to learn anything from this fight!"

"I make up some of my own moves too," Accel retorted. "Watch this!"

She was so fast he had no chance to prepare himself, as she accelerated across the room towards him, then launched herself into an impossible midair quadruple pirouette, kicking him in the chest, flinging him headlong across the room with the unstoppable force of the attack. Vertigo screamed in agony as he collided heavily with the living room fireplace, and dropped to the floor, pain racking every fibre of his body. As he looked up and saw the child sprinting towards him again, he felt something he had never before felt in his life while engaged in unarmed combat. He felt fear, as he suddenly realised that Accel, driven by her anger, was more powerful than he was.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something. The gun. It had landed on the floor after the little slut had kicked it out of his hand. Vertigo grabbed it, pointed it at the onrushing child and pulled the trigger.

Accel screamed, not out of fear, not out of pain, but once more with the overpowering rage that burned through her veins. She felt powerful. She felt powerful enough to do anything, to withstand anything, to survive anything. She wasn't afraid of bullets. Bullets were just metal that moved fast. She was faster. Spinning into another impossible pirouette, Accel swatted the bullet out of the air with the palm of her hand, sending it ricocheting harmlessly into the ceiling.

Then she dropped to her knees, exhausted, dizzy, overwhelmed by what she had just done. Desperately she struggled back to her feet to continue the fight, but the fight was already over. She'd won. Vertigo was fleeing in terror out of the building, and she heard the front door slam. Before she could go after him, the humans were surrounding her. For a second she flinched, expecting attack, but instead she found herself the recipient of an enormous hug from the astonished grandmother.

"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful little girl," the woman breathed with relief. "I don't know how you did that, I don't know how you stood up to him, but I'm so thankful you saved my husband."

"Are you all right?" the grandfather asked. "Did he hurt you?"

"No – no, I'm OK," was all the exhausted little mutant could pant out, getting her breath back.

"Hey, what's your name?" the little boy asked.

"A – Accel," she gasped, taking huge breaths and trying to slow her heart rate.

But her heart suddenly jumped again as she heard the sound of a gunshot from outside. Then she screamed, "Phoebe! Bibi! No!"

Twisting free of the relieved humans, she ran to the door, and flung it open, terrified that the gunshot she had just heard might have been Vertigo shooting one of her friends. She heard the roar of the car's engine and could only watch as it screeched off down the street into the distance. Only Vertigo was inside. Standing in the garden in front of the house were a sobbing Phoebe, with Icarus holding her.

"What happened?" Accel asked.

Then she saw Turtle and Bibi both lying face down in the grass.

"_No_!" she screamed, running towards them.

But both of them were moving, and as she got there, Bibi sat up and gave a sudden gasp, "What was _that_?"

"Ow," Turtle was grimacing. "Man, that hurt."

"Are you guys OK?" Accel cried.

"I got shot in the shell," the boy groaned. "Just as it was opening out. The force of the bullet knocked me into Bibi and I landed on top of her."

"Yeah, mate, your shell weighs a ton," the smallest girl complained.

Accel gave a relieved laugh and hugged both of them tightly, "I'm so glad you're OK! I thought you got shot!"

"I _did_!" said Turtle.

"Well, I thought you'd died!"

Then Icarus and Phoebe grabbed their friends and hugged them out of relief too, and the five of them sank down breathlessly on to the grass.

"What _happened_ in there?" Phoebe demanded. "Why did Vertigo go completely crazy? He came out of here screaming at us to get out of the car, and when we didn't move fast enough, he pulled a gun on us and started _shooting_!"

"I don't know," Accel shook her head. "I really don't know. He was trying to kill the people who live here. He _was_ completely crazy. Then he tried to kill _me_. I managed to fight him off, but...I don't understand. I think something must have happened to him."

"I'll say," Icarus snorted. "Like going completely nuts!"

"No, I – I mean something that happened a long time ago. Maybe when he was the same age we are now. Something happened to his mother."

"His mom? He's got a mom?"

Bibi rolled her eyes, "What, you think he was born by magic?"

"Shut up, Bibi," Icarus snapped. "What happened to his mom?"

"I don't know," said Accel. "I've never heard him talk about her, or any family. I don't have any idea what happened."

"I do," said a voice from above their heads.

The five children looked up from where they were sitting on the grass, to the old man who now stood over them, the grandfather who lived in the house, whom Accel had saved. Instinctively the children got to their feet out of respect for someone much older than they were, and waited for him to explain.

"I didn't recognise him at first, but that young man used to live around here," the man told them. "Little Mikey, his mom called him. I haven't seen him in over nine years."

"Vertigo used to live here?" Phoebe said in surprise. "What did you say his name was, sir?"

"Mikey. Or Michael. He was Chuck and Stacey's kid."

"Who are Chuck and Stacey?"

"I didn't know the family. We used to live two streets over, but then we moved in here when they died, and our daughter now lives in our old house. But Little Mikey used to come play around our street sometimes."

"What happened to them?"

"Nobody really knows. There was an accident in the house and Stacey died. Some say it was a home invasion. And some say it was Chuck who lost his temper and killed her. And then two years later Chuck died too. Nobody knows what happened to him either. Little Mikey was in the house both times, but wouldn't say a word to anyone about what happened on either occasion."

The man's wife, the grandmother, was beside him now, and she added, "I used to teach at the local elementary school. I remember Little Mikey – he was an adorable kid, and one of my best students, until Stacey died. After that he changed – wouldn't speak to anyone, didn't do anything he was asked, didn't seem to care about anything at all. A lot of children at the school picked up mysterious injuries, and nobody knew why. But it stopped when Chuck died and Mikey was taken away to an orphanage out of town. We never heard another word about him or saw him again."

"Until today," her husband corrected her. "I can't even begin to imagine what's going through that young man's head. We'd all be dead if it wasn't for our little rescuer here – what did you say your name was, honey?"

"Accel."

"Is that German?"

"No, it's, um, it's short for something."

"Oh, what?"

"Um, Acceleratus."

The two older people looked at each other, then the woman said, "You're a mutant, right, honey?"

Accel swallowed nervously, "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

She tensed herself, waiting to be attacked or to be yelled at or cursed.

"And your friends here?"

"We are too, ma'am," said Phoebe.

The old woman nodded, "We saw on the news about the attacks on the UN conference centre. There have been a lot of people saying mutants are responsible and saying we should attack mutants on sight."

The children exchanged frightened glances and instinctively found themselves moving closer together to feel safer.

"That's why you're here, right?" said the old man. "You're running from people trying to hurt you?"

"Um," said Accel. "I guess so. Vertigo was supposed to be looking after us but he just went crazy when he got here."

"Vertigo? Is that what Mikey calls himself now?"

"Yeah. We didn't know he was ever called Mikey."

"That was what people called him. His real name was Michael. Michael Messenger."

Then the old woman said, "Look, you must all be hungry and tired. Come in and have something to eat, and we'll try and find somewhere you can sleep."

The children hesitated, and Phoebe said, "You're – you're not going to hurt us? I thought you said people were hurting mutants because of what happened at the conference."

"Sure they are, but we don't believe in attacking innocent people for the sins of others. Besides, Accel here saved our lives, and how can we leave little children cold and hungry out on the street? Come in, all of you."

The five children realised they _were_ hungry, and cold and tired, and with Vertigo gone they had no money or transport or any adults to care for them. They didn't know these people, but they decided they had to take the risk, and followed the two elders inside.


	30. Chapter 30

Note from the author: apologies for the delay. Our baby son was born 2 months premature back in February so life has been extremely difficult until now. Hope you enjoy this chapter :)

* * *

Accel lay awake in the dim light of early evening, and listened to the other two girls sleeping. To her left, Phoebe was giving little snores, and to her right, Bibi was breathing heavily. Accel couldn't sleep. Not that she wasn't tired – there was just something inside that meant she couldn't let go of the day that was passing. It had been a day like no other. So much had gone on. So much to think about.

What had _happened_ at the conference? Why were there bombs? Why had the stupid humans started attacking her teachers and her friends? _Well, that's a no-brainer_, she thought, _it's just what humans do. Why were we protecting them in the first place, anyway? It's stupid trying to be their friends when they so obviously don't want to be ours_!

As hard as the teachers had tried to shield her from it and sugar-coat what was really happening, Accel knew a lot of people had died. She had heard the screams, and even seen one or two bodies. She tried to think how it had felt. It wasn't the first time she had seen death. When she was seven years old, she'd seen death, when Pyro's Brotherhood had rescued her from a bunch of human sub-creatures intent on killing her. At ten years old, death wasn't something she thought about very often, but yesterday had scared her a little at just how easily it could happen. _Still, it was only humans who died, _she told herself, _they're going to die someday anyway. Pyro always said that. When it comes down to the fight between us and them, we're always going to win_.

But then those other mutants had shown up. Accel didn't know who they were or what they wanted. It made sense that they had attacked the humans, because all mutants needed to fight to protect themselves from being hurt by the sub-creatures. But why had they started attacking her teachers and her friends? That didn't make sense at all! Why were mutants attacking other mutants? _We should be sticking together_, she thought, _to protect ourselves from the humans! We'll only be weaker if we fight amongst ourselves first! The fight is between us and them, not us and us! _Mutants should never kill other mutants – that had always been Pyro's rule.

So they'd run for it and ended up at the so-called "safe" house. Which had proved to be anything but! That was when things had really started to go crazy. Where had Vertigo gone? Why had he been so weird when he got back? How had the bad guy, Dervish, known where to find them? It was supposed to be a secret! Only people who used to be in the Brotherhood were supposed to know where it was! And they were all her friends – except maybe one or two who'd died or disappeared off the scene. Was that what it was? Had Scarab or Mole reappeared somewhere? But even they had been her friends – back on the island when she was just seven, they'd always played with her and made her laugh.

And Dervish had said he'd been targeting _her_ specifically. Why? He'd said it was because she'd pushed that crazy cat-woman out of the window at the hotel. Well, what else was Accel supposed to have done? Stand there and let the cat-woman kill Mr Logan and Gemini? Not that she cared about the human they were supposed to have been protecting. No! Never! Accel furiously told herself that her attack on the woman had only been an effort to help out Gemini and Mr Logan in the fight. It hadn't been to protect the human. Pyro would have been livid if he'd known Accel had helped save a human.

Dervish had tried to kill her. And that was when it had happened. The anger, the rage, the burning inside. The explosive amplification of her powers. Speed, alertness and strength like she had never known before. And it had felt _good_, like she had been keeping all of this inside her for years and years and years, and had finally been able to let it out. It had felt good, and it had felt _right_, as if she was finally fighting back and striking a blow against the injustice the humans had inflicted on her through her entire life. She wanted to fight back. She wanted to hurt those who had hurt her. She wanted to scream and rage and hurt them until they couldn't hurt her any more. She wanted to unleash her anger and her newfound power on those who deserved it. Five seconds of it had been enough to completely turn the tables on Dervish.

After that, things had got weirder still. Vertigo had gone completely crazy. She still didn't really understand why. Something to do with coming back to the place where he was born. Something horrible had happened to his mum and dad. _Huh_, she thought, _at least he had a mum and dad! I don't even know who mine are! I wasn't even given a name! Not that I would have wanted a stupid human name anyway!_ Accel closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to drip out, and once again furiously told herself that she didn't care. But all her friends had real names as well as human names. Phobia was Phoebe. Byblos was Kimberly or Bibi. Turtle was Thomas. Icarus was Juan-Carlos. But she was just Acceleratus, nothing more.

_Well, that's the way I want it_! she yelled inside her head, _that's all I want to be! I'm a mutant, not a stupid human! I don't care, I don't care! _She told herself she'd only shortened it to Accel because it was easier to say, not to make it a substitute for a given name.

But anyway, Vertigo had gone crazy and started attacking her. She'd had no choice but to defend herself. She'd walked into the house and he'd just started shooting a gun at her. He'd called her horrible things as well, really awful words that she refused to repeat even in her mind. What on earth was wrong with him? She'd managed to fight him off and force him out of the house, and then got out herself before the humans living there could attack her.

Except, that wasn't what had happened. That was the version of events Accel was desperately trying to convince herself had taken place, but it wasn't working. She knew it wasn't true. Her mind just couldn't accept the true version of events, what she had really done. She had saved the humans. She had fought a fellow mutant to save humans. She had risked her own life, and almost lost it, to save humans. Not humans – sub-creatures! That was what Pyro had always taught her to call them. She had fought to save sub-creatures!

And not only that, they had thanked her. They'd hugged her and given her a meal and a place to sleep. It didn't make any sense! This wasn't what Pyro had always said humans did! He'd always said it was a waste of time protecting humans and showing them friendship, because they would never respond. But these ones had! This wasn't right! This wasn't supposed to happen!

She rolled on to her back and looked up at the ceiling. The three girls were sleeping in the spare bedroom of the old couple's house. The two boys, along with the old couple's grandson, were in another room across the way. Accel suddenly realised this was the first time she had ever slept in a normal bedroom in a normal house for about three years. At the X-School, there were shared dormitories for the younger girls. On the island with the Brotherhood she'd had her own little room, though.

Accel thought back to her life on the island. True, she hadn't been there for long before the island was destroyed by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but it was the first time in her life she had ever been happy, and felt like she had something approaching a family. Perhaps not a normal family with a mum and dad, but at least some older brothers and sisters. They'd all helped out in caring for her and trying to raise her. At the time she hadn't understood why, but all of them had wanted to take a part in it.

Gladiator, Scarab and Mole had cleared out an old storeroom of junk, and made it into her little bedroom – the first she'd ever had. Atlas and Vertigo had collected scrap wood and rope, and built her something like an adventure playground outside the sanctuary building. Cassie had taken it upon herself to put together an education program for Accel. Each morning she would take the little girl into a quiet room and for an hour or so they would read a book together, then they'd share a big pad of paper and do writing and drawings. After a snack break, Gemini would take over and help Accel to work through some maths problems. Then Accel would follow Cassie and Gemini around while they cleaned up the place (the guys could never be bothered!) and help them out where she could.

The guys could occasionally be talked into taking a "class": Atlas would show her how to grow flowers and vegetables; Vertigo would teach her self-defence; there had even been talk of trying to persuade Recyclo to give her computer lessons. Maybe in a way all of them had wanted to help give her the happy childhood that none of them had ever had, with the acceptance and the love and the care from those around her. It was something she'd never known before. It was something she'd thought humans weren't capable of doing. That was what Pyro had always taught her.

But that wasn't what was happening right now. The old couple – Mr and Mrs Adams, they called themselves – were showing them the same kindness now. And it couldn't just be because Accel had saved them, as they had extended it to her friends as well.

_OK_, she thought, _so maybe there are two decent humans in the world. Three if I count the little boy who lives here, because he seems to like us too. But that still leaves however many millions and billions who don't like us, and aren't worth saving. We still have to fight them, before they can destroy us. We don't have any other choice._

The war was coming, and the mutants had to fight to protect themselves. The humans couldn't be allowed to destroy them. The mutants didn't have any other choice.

That was what Pyro had always taught her.


End file.
